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MODERN  REPRESENTATIONS 


OP  THE 


LIFE     OF     JESUS. 


THE 


MODERN  REPRESENTATIONS 


OF  THE 


LIFE    OF    JESUS. 


FOUE   DISCOURSES 

DELIVKKED    BEFORE    THE    EVANGELICAL    TJNION    AT    HANOVER, 

QEKMANY, 


By  Dr.  GERHARD  ^UHLHORN, 

FIRST  PREACHER  TO  THE  COURT. 


TRANSLATED    FROM    THE    THIRD    GERMAN    EDITION, 

By   CHARLES  E.  GRINKELL. 


BOSTON: 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND    COMPANY. 

1868. 


/ 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1868,  by 

CHARLES   E.    GRtNNELL, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


THIRD  EDITION. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
PRESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 


PKEFAOE 

BY    THE    TEANSLATOR. 


^TPHESE  excellent  discourses  have  been  trans- 
lated because  they  present  a  fair,  broad,  and 
clear  view  of  the  modern  controversies  concerning 
the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  from  a  standpoint  of  super- 
naturalism.  It  is  hoped  that  their  scientific  array 
of  arguments  may  be  of  use  to  some  who  are  already 
familiar  with  their  substance,  and  that  their  popular 
form  may  serve  to  attract  to  divine  learning  some 
who  do  not  know  the  strength  of  the  foundations 
of  the  Christian  religion. 

The  theology  of  the  learned  Author,  so  far  as  it  is 
indicated  by  these  historical  discourses,  differs  from 
that  of  the  translator ;  but  it  does  not  interfere  with 
the  historical  purpose  of  the  translation. 

The  original  discourses  are  not  furnished  with 
references  to  the  pages,  volumes,  or  editions  of  the 
works  of  Renan,  Schenkel,  or  Strauss,  from  which 


VI  PREFACE. 

quotations  are  made.  The  quotations  have  been 
verified  ;  and  it  is  thought  that  the  addition  to  the 
translation  of  definite  references  to  the  books  criti- 
cised, with  corresponding  references  to  the  English 
translations  of  those  books,  may  be  of  service.  Eef- 
erences  have  also  been  subjoined  to  those  quota- 
tions in  the  notes  which  the  translator  has  been  able 
to  verify.  The  learned  Author  quotes  the  meaning, 
but  not  the  letter,  of  Kepler,  Eitter,  and  Agassiz. 
The  substantial  quotations  from  Kepler  and  Ritter 
are  translated  as  given  in  the  original  Notes ;  but 
the  translator  has  taken  the  liberty  to  substitute 
Agassiz' s  own  English  words  in  place  of  a  transla- 
tion of  a  paraphrase  i 

The  editions  referred  to  in  the  following  pages 
are — "Vie  de  Jesus."  Par  Ernest  Renan.  Dou- 
zieme  Edition.  Boston:  De  Yries, Ibarra,  et  Cie. — 
"  The  Life  of  Jesus."  By  Ernest  Renan.  Trans- 
lated from  the  original  French  by  Charles  Edwin 
Wilbour.  New  York :  Carleton,  1864.  —  "  Das  Cha- 
racterbild  Jesu."  Ein  biblicher  Yersuch.  Yon  Dr. 
Daniel  Schenkel.  Dritte  Auflage.  Wiesbaden: 
C.  W.  Kreidel's  Yerlag,  1864.  —  "  The  'Chai^acter 
of  Jesus  Portrayed."  A  Biblical  Essay,  with  an  Ap- 
pendix. By  Dr.  Daniel  Schenkel.  Translated  from 
the  third  German  edition,  with  Introduction  and 
Notes,  by  W.  H.  Furness,  D.D.     Boston:   Little, 


PREFACE.  VU 

Brown,  &  Co.,  1866.  —  "Das  Leben  Jesu,  fiir  das 
deutsche  Yolk  gearbeitet."  Von  David  Friedrich 
Strauss.  Zweite  Auflage.  Leipzig:  F.  A.  Brock- 
haus,  1864.  —  "  A  New  Life  of  Jesus."  By  David 
Friedrich  Strauss.  Authorized  Translation,  2  vols. 
London    and    Edinburgh:    Williams    &    Norgate, 

1865. 

C.  E.  G. 

Lowell,  Massachusetts, 

May  1,  1868. 


P  E  E  F  A  C  E 


BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


T  HA  YE  determined,  only  after  repeated  requests, 
to  publish  the  following  discourses,  which  I  de- 
livered this  winter  before  the  Evangelical  Union. 
It  is  with  such  discourses  as  with  sermons :  without 
attributing  any  special  value  to  them,  one  should 
not  withhold  them  from  those  who  may  wish  to 
read  them  in  private,  or  to  communicate  them  to 
others.  I  have  therefore  left  them,  with  unessential 
alterations,  just  as  they  were.  They  are  meant  to 
be  the  same  discourses  which  I  delivered.  It  did 
not  seem  to  me  to  accord  with  the  character  of 
such  discourses,  to  furnish  them  with  citations  to 
which  I  did  not  refer  in  the  delivery.  Since  cita- 
tions are  often  only  the  expression  of  thanks  to 
those  from  whom  one  has  learned  something,  these 
thanks  may  here  be  generally  expressed.  Popular 
discourses  are  not  intended  to  impart  new  investi- 
gations :  I  wish  simply  to  repeat  to  my  hearers 
what   I   myself  have    learned    from    others.      It 


X  PREFACE. 

seemed,  however,  to  be  well  to  add  in  the  Notes 
several  things  which  the  limited  time  of  delivery 
excluded  from  the  discourses.  The  choice  of  these 
additions  rests  in  great  part  upon  conversations 
with  my  hearers,  and  their  consequent  requests. 

May  the  Lord  bless  the  printed  word,  as  I  hope 
He  has  permitted  the  spoken  word  to  be  not  with- 
out a  blessing! 

Hanover,  Feb.  8,  1866. 


CONTENTS. 


FIRST    DISCOURSE. 

PAOK 

The  Life  of  Jesus  by  Renan 1 

SECOND    DISCOURSE. 

"  The  Character  of  Jesus  Portrayed,"  by  Schen- 

kel;  "A  New  Life  of  Jesus,"  by  Strauss      .      34 

THIRD    DISCOURSE. 
The  Gospels 78 

FOURTH   DISCOURSE. 
The  Miracles 116 


FIRST   DISCOUHSE. 

THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 


OINCE  the  first  days  of  the  Church,  when  she 
^^  had  to  defend  her  faith  against  heathen  cal- 
umny and  heathen  science,  the  attacks  upon  Chris- 
tianity and  the  Church  have  never  been  so  manifold 
and  so  powerful  as  at  the  present  time.  The  con- 
test is  no  longer  upon  single  questions,  such  as 
whether  this  or  that  conception  of  Christianity  is 
the  more  correct;  but  the  very  existence  of  Chris- 
tianity is  at  stake.  Though  the  final  goal,  the 
destruction  of  Christianity  and  the  Church,  is 
concealed  in  many  of  these  assaults ;  though  they 
pretend  to  undertake  to  lead  back  Christian  faith 
and  life  to  its  original  purity  and  simplicity,  —  but 
little  acuteness  is  needed  to  perceive,  that  this  is 
mere  show,  —  that  they  really  attempt  to  set  aside 
that  at  least  which  has  been  known  up  to  this  time 
as  Christianity.  But,  thank  God,  there  is  also  no 
lack  of  defenders  of  the  invaded  sanctuary ;  and  it 
can  also  be  truly  said,  that  at  no  time  has  tlie  apol- 
ogetical  activity  in  the  Church  been  so  lively  as  at 


2         THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  EENAN. 

present.  A  whole  literature  of  this  tenor  has  grown 
up  of  late  years ;  and  in  most  of  the  larger  cities  of 
our  Fatherland,  during  tliis  time,  apologetical  dis- 
courses have  been  orally  delivered,  certainly  not 
without  a  blessing. 

It  is  true,  one  must  avoid  overvaluing  such  at- 
tempts at  defence.  The  best  defence  is,  and  must 
always  remain,  the  simple,  faithful  preaching  gf  the 
gospel,  and  the  real  witness  of  the  power  of  Chris- 
tianity in  life  and  conversation.  The  most  correct 
course  of  defence  is  found  upon  the  first  page  of  the 
Gospel,  where  Philip  answers  to  the  doubt  of  Na- 
thanael,  "  Come  and  see."  But,  even  if  Christianity 
can  be  demonstrated  to  nobody,  he  who  has  seen 
and  experienced  nothing  of  it  can  take  nothing 
from  it.  In  spite  of  all  that,  however,  apologetical 
activity  has  in  all  cases  great  importance. 

The  circle  in  which  books  are  read  which  have 
undertaken  to  attack  Christianity,  is  comparatively 
small.  No  German  work  has  had  a  circulation 
approaching  that  of  Renan's  book  in  France  ;  and 
how  many  have  the  time  and  desire  to  read  through 
such  comprehensive  writings  as  those  of  Strauss 
and  Schenkel  ?  How  many  there  are  who  content 
themselves  with  the  knowledge  of  having  it  down 
in  black  and  white,  that  it  is  all  over  with  Christian- 
ity !  But  the  circle  is  considerably  greater  in  which 
those  writings  have  at  least  an  indirect  influence. 
This  influence  is  exerted  through  the  periodical 
press.  The  daily  and  weekly  newspapers,  and  the 
monthly   magazines,  take    up   the   matter  as   one 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.         3 

adapted  to  the  times,  and  communicate,  in  a  brief 
and  popular  way,  to  the  greater  public  the  pretend- 
ed results  of  those  writings.  Hence  arises  a  kind 
of  public  opinion  upon  the  subject ;  and  an  uncer- 
tainty, at  least,  widely  prevails  whether  the  founda- 
tions of  Christianity  are  sound,  —  an  uncertainty 
which,  from  being  more  dangerous  the  less  able  one 
is  to  investigate  the  questions,  hinders  many  from 
coming  to  Christianity.  Now,  as  has  been  already 
said,  although  we  may  be  unable  to  demonstrate 
Christianity  to  any  one,  we  can  nevertheless  remove 
such  hindrances  ;  and  it  is  our  duty  to  do  so. 

From  the  pulpit  this  is  a  difficult,  if  not  an  im- 
possible, task ;  for  the  service  of  public  worship  is 
an  occasion  for  building  up  the  people  in  their  faith, 
and  not  for  proving  this  faith  in  the  first  place. 
Here  the  sermon  itself  must  be  prepared  before- 
hand, since  the  preacher  in  writing  and  in  speaking 
avoids  general  controversy,  and  declares  the  sound 
— yes,  the  scientifically  and  historically  sound  —  con- 
firmation of  the  Christian  faith.  In  writing  and 
speaking,  I  say ;  for  just  here  the  living  word  has 
great  importance.  As  a  sermon  which  is  printed 
and  read  is  never  so  effective  as  one  which  is 
spoken  and  heard,  even  if  the  latter  is  inferior  to 
the  former  in  many  points  of  matter  and  style,  so 
it  is  with  essays  of  this  kind.  There  is  always 
something  dead  in  the  letter,  and  it  can  never  fill 
the  place  of  the  living  person.  I  would  earnestly 
entreat  you  to  give  the  benefit  of  this  remark  to 
me.     I  do  not  pretend  to  be  able  to  give  you  much 


4         THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  EENAN. 

that  is  new,  which  may  not  have  been  already  said 
elsewhere,  and  better  than  I  can  say  it ;  but  I  do  not 
believe  that  it  is  therefore  sufficient  to  merely  refer 
you  to  printed  essays  and  books  upon  the  subject. 
I  think  that  the  living  word,  even  when  it  does  not 
comprehend  so  much,  may  be  worth  hearing. 

The  attacks  upon  the  Christian  faith,  different  as^ 
they  are,  have  essentially  one  aim,  —  which  is,  to  set 
aside  the  supernatural  in  Christianity,  and  with  it 
Christianity  itself.  Our  people,  as  has  been  openly 
enough  declared,  should  be  converted  from  the  su- 
pernatural view  of  the  world  that  has  hitherto  pre- 
vailed, to  a  purely  natural  view.  No  one  can  fail 
to  see,  and  our  opponents  least  of  all,  that,  if  this 
should  succeed,  Christianity  would  vanish.  Let  them 
call  what  they  shall  put  in  its  place  Christianity,  — 
at  least  at  first,  to  prevent  simple  souls,  who  are 
not  easily  freed  from  prejudices,  from  being  shocked 
too  soon,  —  Christianity  will  really  no  longer  exist ; 
for  it  is  fundamentally  and  essentially  supernatural. 
It  is  faith  in  an  act  of  God,  who  has  taken  this 
earthly  world  in  his  grasp,  and  fulfilled  the  work 
of  redemption.  The  point  where  the  supernatural 
concentrates  as  it  were,  where  it  has  its  centre,  is 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  God-man.  There- 
fore it  is  perfectly  natural  that  the  chief  attack  is 
directed  against  this  point.  The  attack  proceeds, 
however,  according  to  the  whole  character  of  the 
present  age,  in  historical  array.  The  picture  which 
the  Church  has  hitherto  made  of  her  Head,  of  Christ, 
and  has  made  unanimously,  is  represented  as  unhis- 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.         5 

torical.  It  is  said  to  be  proved,  that  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth did  not  so  live  and  act  as  the  Church  believes. 
If  this  should  be  proved,  it  would  destroy  the  his- 
torical foundation  of  Christianity ;  and  since  Chris- 
tianity is  not  a  system  of  doctrines,  but  simply  faith 
in  the  redemptive  act  of  God,  that  has  been  revealed 
in  history,  it  would  fall  with  its  foundations. 

Since  I  undertake  to  treat  of  the  modern  repre- 
sentations of  the  life  of  Jesus,  —  which,  different  as 
they  are,  have  the  common  aim  to  prove  the  Church's 
representation  of  Christ  to  be  unhistorical,  and  to 
set  up  another  in  its  place,  which  is  pretended  to  be 
historical,  —  it  is  necessary,  for  the  sake  of  being 
understood,  to  speak  still  further  in  the  way  of  intro- 
duction.     The  appearance  of  such  works  as  that  of 
Renan,  and  the  like,  naturally  has  a  sudden  effect 
upon  any  one  who  is  not  familiar  with  the  discus- 
sions  concerning   the   beginning   of  the    Christian 
Church,  which   have   been   carried   on  with   great 
warmth,  but  for  the  most  part  in  purely  scientific 
circles,  during  the  last  thirtjj  or  forty  years.     But 
they  are  not  at  all  novel ;  their  appearance  has  been 
long  prepared  for ;  and  it  is  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance in  judging  them  to  regard  them  in  connection 
with  their  antecedents,  to  consider   their  gradual 
growth.    In  this  very  act  there  is  a  criticism.    Every 
thing  sudden  is  somewhat  startling ;  but  this  effect 
passes  away  when  one  learns  the  gradual  approach 
of  the  phenomenon.      It  gives  us  at  the  very  outset 
a  certain  confidence  in  the  Church's  representation 
of  Christ,  when  we  look  over  the  whole  row  of  at- 


# 


6         THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

tempts  to  set  it  aside,  and  see  that  each  new  attempt 
begins  in  the  same  way,  —  to  show  that  the  preced- 
ing one  is  unsatisfactory.  It  is  as  if  we  heard  at 
the  door  the  feet  of  them  who  shall  come  in  to  carry 
out  those  also  who  lord  it  over  the  present  day. 

For  this  purpose  I  must  lead  you  a  generation 
back,  to  the  time  when  the  appearance  of  the  first 
edition  of  the  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  by  Strauss  caused  a 
commotion  in  our  Fatherland,  similar  to  that  which 
the  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  by  Renan  has  lately  aroused 
in  France.  At  that  time  the  old  rationalism  had 
about  lost  its  power  in  science.  Only  its  last  de- 
fenders occupied  chairs  in  the  university,  and  this 
was  also  the  amount  of  its  force  in  the  pulpit. 
This  old,  or,  as  it  is  also  called,  vulgar  rationalism, 
held  to  the  genuineness  of  the  Gospels  (passing 
doubtfully  over  the  Gospel  of  John,  it  is  true),  and 
was,  on  the  whole,  decided  that  they  were  historical. 
But,  it  said,  they  must  be  rationally  interpreted. 
The  chief  rules  of  this  rational  interpretation  were 
a  many-sided  accommodation  on  the  part  of  the 
Lord,  and  a  naturalistic  explanation  of  the  miracles. 
By  means  of  these  exegetical  tricks,  it  could  do 
away  with  every  thing  supernatural,  and  still  get 
from  the  Gospels  a  perfectly  natural  picture  of  Je- 
sus which  corresponded  with  their  rational  ideas. 
Whatever  there  was  in  the  words  of  the  Lord  that 
exceeded  the  measure  of  sound  human  reason,  was 
explained  as  accommodation.  It  was  said  that  in 
such  places  Jesus  only  accommodated  himself  to 
the  ideas  of  his  contemporaries  ;  when,  for  instance. 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.         T 

he  declared  himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  and  when  he 
taught  the  doctrines  of  angels  and  devils. 

Yes,  all  that  relates  to  the  atonement  is  only  an 
accommodation  to  the  sacrificial  ideas  of  the  Jews. 
The   miracles   are  altogether  natural  occurrences, 
related  in  the  style  of  Oriental  fancy.     If  one  strips 
off  the  hull  of  this  style,  and  only  understands  how 
to  read  these  Oriental  stories,  there  remains  a  very 
simple,  not  at  all  supernatural,  often  indeed  a  very 
insipid,  kernel  Avithin.    Thus,  for  instance,  the  story 
of  the  transfiguration  amounts  to  this.     Once,  while 
Jesus  was  having  a  consultation  with  two  intimate, 
confidential  friends  (who,  by  the  way,  play  a  very 
large  part  in  the  rationalistic  interpretations),  the 
first  rays  of  the  rising  sun  shone  upon  him.     From 
this  the  imagination  of  the  disciples  created  the 
transfiguration,  and  the  presence  of  the  two  inti- 
mate friends  led  them  to  imagine  Moses  and  Elias. 
The  turning  water  into  wine  was  a  wedding-joke  of 
Jesus,  who  had  some  wine,  that  was  kept  ready, 
brought  in  at  the  nick  of  time.     The  shining  of  the 
heavenly  hosts  on  the  fields  near  Bethlehem  was  a 
phosphorescent  phenomenon,  if  indeed  it  was  not 
merely  the  light  from  a  large  stable-lantern,  as  one 
of   the   interpreters   supposes.      Thus    the   whole 
appearance  of  Jesus  was  thoroughly  natural.     He 
became  a  Jewish  rabbi,  the  wise  teacher  of  Naza- 
reth, whose  doctrine,  if  one  takes  a  rational  view  of 
it,  has  always,  it  is  true,  been  of  great  consequence  ; 
but  its  importance  consists  essentially  in  this,  that 
he  first  taught  the  truths  which  any  one  can  get 


8         THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

from  his  own  reason.  It  was  gradually  perceived, 
however,  that  all  this  was  untenable  and  unsat- 
isfactory. It  could  not  be  concealed,  that  the 
evangelists  were  made  to  say  very  different  things 
from  what  they  really  said  ;  and,  though  rationalism 
had  always  striven  to  hold  fast  the  sinlessness  of 
Jesus,  it  became  clear,  that  the  accommodation  at- 
tributed to  Jesus  was  morally  equivocal,  and  at  least 
a  self-deception.  The  period  of  the  vulgar  rational- 
ism passed  by.  After  the  first  thirty  years  of  this 
century,  its  rule  was  entirely  overthrown.  There 
was  opposed  to  it,  on  one  side,  a  believing  theology, 
excited  by  the  great  experiences  of  the  contest  for 
freedom,  and  advanced  by  the  active  service  of 
Schleiermacher ;  on  the  other  side,  unbelief  took 
courses  that  were  entirely  new. 

After  these  new  roads  had  been  pointed  out  for 
some  time  from  different  quarters,  Strauss,  in  his 
"  Life  of  Jesus,"  was  the  first  to  follow  them  out  to 
the  end.  Strauss  opposed  both  sides,  both  the  Church 
doctrine  and  rationalism.  According  to  his  view, 
the  Gospels  contain  substantially  no  history ;  neither 
a  history  of  supernatural  events,  as  the  Church  doc- 
trine declares ;  nor  a  history  of  natural  events,  as 
rationalism  declares :  but  merely  myth,  a  wreath  of 
legends  which  the  romance  of  the  disciples  bound 
about  the  head  of  the  Master.  The  prophecies  of 
the  Old  Testament  afforded  the  special  occasion  for 
this.  It  was  supposed  that  these  had  been  fulfilled 
in  Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  and  therefore  tradition,  with 
its  unintentional  fiction,  fabricated  a  whole  list  of 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.         9 

tales  according  to  Old -Testament  prophecies  and 
Old-Testament  models.  These  tales  certainly  have 
an  historical  appearance  ;  but  they  really  contain  less 
of  nothing  than  of  history.  For  instance,  since  the 
legend  makes  Moses  give  water  to  the  people,  the 
Messiah  must  do  more,  —  he  gives  wine.  Hence 
the  story  of  turning  water  into  wine.  Since  Moses 
returns  from  the  mountain  with  a  shining  face,  the 
legend  concerning  Jesus  grows  to  the  story  of 
the  transfiguration.  Thus  arose  all  the  accounts 
of  the  healing  of  the  sick.  This  was  expected  of 
the  Messiah ;  therefore  it  was  attributed  to  Jesus 
in  the  legend.  And  since  Elias  had  raised  some 
one  from  the  dead,  of  course  the  Messiah  can  have 
done  no  less.  Take  away  every  thing  legendary,  and 
there  remains  hardly  any  thing  that  is  historical. 
The  original  stem,  says  Strauss,  is  so  wrapped  in 
creeping  plants  of  legend,  that  it  is  now  scarcely  to 
be  distinguished;  and  we  really  know  hardly  any 
thing  more  about  Jesus  than  that  he  lived,  taught, 
and  finally  died  on  the  cross. 

Thus  the  whole  form  of  the  Lord  was  enveloped 
in  mythical  clouds.  It  is  no  longer  known  who  he 
was :  this  alone  can  be  said  with  certainty,  that  he 
was  not,  as  the  Church  believes,  God  become  man. 
But  Christianity,  the  Church,  still  exists :  Strauss 
j^g:0roannot  deny  us  this.  Whence  has  this  sprung? 
To  this  question  Strauss  only  repeats  the  purely 
negative  answer,  —  Not  from  supernatural  causes. 
Then  from  what  natural  causes  ?  This  he  cannot 
tell;  for  the  reiterated,  monotonous  derivation  of 


10  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

the  New-Testament  stories  from  the  Old-Testament 
models  and  prophecies,  is  far  too  dry  to  furnish  the 
most  distant  idea  of  the  actual,  concrete  fulness  of 
life  which  then  existed.  By  the  pretended  denial 
of  the  supernatural  origin  of  Christianity,  Christian- 
ity itself  has  become  inexplicable.  We  are  wholly 
in  the  dark ;  and  Strauss,  instead  of  solving  a  riddle 
for  us,  has  given  us  a  much  harder  one. 

Every  historical  phenomenon  must  have  a  suffi- 
cient cause.  To  this  rule,  Christianity  is  no  excep- 
tion. If  it  is  asserted  that  the  Church  is  mistaken 
in  assuming  a  supernatural  cause,  they  who  make 
this  assertion  cannot  escape  the  burden  of  proving 
how  Christianity  sprung  from  merely  natural  causes. 
So  long  as  this  remains  unproved,  they  have  accom- 
plished nothing,  and  can  never  avoid  the  necessity 
of  assuming  supernatural  causes  where  natural 
causes  are  insufficient.  That  task  is  before  us,  to 
accomplish  which  the  so-called  Tiibingen  school 
worked  so  many  years.  Let  us  see  with  what  re- 
sult. 

The  late  Professor  Baur,  of  Tubingen,  the  chief 
of  the  Tubingen  school,  which  also  bears  his  name, 
once  said,  "  Strauss  tried  to  surprise  the  fortress, 
and  to  take  it  by  storm ;  but  it  showed  that  it  re- 
quired a  regular  siege."  This  siege  Baur  undertook, 
with  unceasing  labor,  with  the  greatest  ingenuity, 
and  with  untiring  endurance.  The  trenches  were 
begun  at  a  distance,  to  proceed  gradually  nearer  to 
the  heart  of  the  fortress.  The  Tubingen  school 
begins,  not  with  the  life  and  person  of  the  Lord,  but 


THE  LIFE   OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.'  11 

with  the  apostolic  and  post-apostolic  times.  From 
these  times  it  proceeds  to  learn,  that  in  the  apos- 
tolic period  there  are  traces  of  a  twofold  tendency, 
both  among  the  apostles  and  the  Church  at  large, — 
a  Jewish-Christian  side,  and  a  freer  Gentile-Christian 
side.  Formerly,  it  was  assumed  that  this  division, 
broad  as  it  was  in  apostolic  circles,  went  no  deeper, 
did  not  disturb  the  unity  of  the  Church ;  that,  on 
the  contrary,  the  extreme  Jewish-Christian  party 
soon  separated  from  the  Church,  and  went  into  the 
Ebionite  heresy.  But  the  Tiibingen  school  declares 
this  division  to  have  been  the  motive-power  through- 
out the  early  times,  extending  far  into  the  second 
century ;  and  insists  that  in  this  contest  it  was  that 
Christianity  gradually  freed  .itself  from  Judaism. 
Accordingly,  the  earliest  history  of  the  Church  takes 
about  the  following  form :  The  primitive  Church  — 
the  original  apostles,  even  Peter  and  John  not  ex- 
cepted —  was  thoroughly  Jewish-Christian ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  Christians  were  really  still  Jews  in  all 
their  views  and  customs ;  only  distinguished  from 
the  other  Jews  on  the  single  point,  that,  while  the 
latter  still  expected  the  Messiah,  the  former  declared 
that  he  had  already  appeared  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
In  other  respects,  this  Jewish-Christianity  was  based 
altogether  upon  the  law  and  particularism :  it  knew 
as  little  of  justification  by  faith,  as  of  the  spread  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  among  the  Gentiles.  Hence, 
unless  another  tendency  had  made  its  appearance, 
this  Jewish  Christianity  would  have  remained  a 
mere  phenomenon  within  the  Jewish  Church.    This 


12  THE   LIFE   OF   JESUS   BY   RENAN. 

other  tendency  appeared  in  Paul,  who  was  the  first 
to  effect  the  revolution  from  the  religion  of  law  to 
the  religion  of  freedom,  from  particularism  to  uni- 
versalism.  The  two  tendencies  were  directly  op- 
posed to  each  other,  and  there  was  no  reconciliation 
during  the  apostolic  period.  Paul's  whole  life  was 
a  fight  against  Judaism ;  and,  it  must  be  added,  a 
fight  to  no  purpose:  he  was  worsted  by  Judaism. 
It  was  in  the  post-apostolic  period  that  the  contro- 
versy became  less  intense.  Each  side  gave  up  its 
extremes,  modified  itself;  and,  through  a  series  of 
transactions,  the  reconciliation  was  conducted  to 
perfect  neutrality,  to  a  treaty  of  peace,  in  the  old 
Catholic  Church,  with  the  formula,  —  Faith  and 
works,  Peter  and  Paul.  Most  of  the  writings  which 
the  Church,  from  the  standpoint  of  this  treaty  of 
peace,  afterwards  transferred  back  into  the  apostolic 
period,  and  received  into  the  canon,  are  only  docu- 
ments of  these  transactions.  The  only  writings  of 
genuine  apostolic  origin  are  the  thoroughly  Jewish- 
Christian  Revelation  of  John,  and  four  Epistles  of 
Paul  (Romans,  First  and  Second  Corinthians,  Gala- 
tians).  All  the  rest  are  partisan  writings  of  one  or 
the  other  tendency,  evidences  of  the  conflict.  Te7i- 
dency,  —  that  is  now  the  magic  word  by  which  all 
these  writings  are  explained.  Their  tendency  is 
looked  for,  whether  Jewish-Christian  or  Pauline, 
hostile  or  conciliatory,  or  entirely  neutral ;  and  they 
are  ranked  accordingly.  The  Gospels  also  are  now 
no  longer,  as  Strauss  tells  us,  products  of  the  unin- 
tentional fiction  of  legend ;  but  plainly  intentional, 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.        13 

partisan  writings  of  the  different  factions,  who 
therein  defend  their  views,  and  according  to  them 
draw  the  portrait  of  the  Lord.  Thus  Matthew  is  a 
party-pamphlet  on  the  Jewish-Christian  side,  Luke 
is  one  on  the  Pauline  side ;  both,  however,  belonging 
to  a  certain  grade  of  the  approaching  reconciliation  : 
while  Mark,  the  latest  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  rep- 
resents the  full  neutrality. 

But,  I  hear  you  ask,  what  has  all  this  to  do  with 
the  person  of  Christ  ?  Little  or  nothing.  Schweg- 
ler,  who  made  the  first  full  and  connected  statement 
of  the  views  of  the  Tiibingen  school,  wrote  an  essay, 
pretending  to  discuss  the  origin  of  Christianity,  in 
which  he  alludes  to  Christ,  only  incidentally,  in  a  re- 
mark, saying  that  it  is  not  really  known  who  he  was, 
and  it  can  only  be  said,  that  he  did  not  have  a  very 
deep  influence  upon  his  discij)les.  This,  it  is  true, 
was  afterwards  modified  by  Baur.  According  to  his 
view,  Christianity  did  really  exist  in  Christ :  but 
this  by  no  means  settles  the  question  ;  for  then  Baur 
discourses  again  about  a  deep  gulf  that  lay  between 
the  life  of  the  Lord  and  the  apostolic  period. 
Granted  that  Christianity  existed  in  Christ,  the  dis- 
ciples, nevertheless,  were  extreme  Judaizers,  were 
really  still  Jews  and  not  Christians.  Consequently, 
Christ  is  not  the  actual  founder  of  Christianity. 
But  who  is  ?  One  thinks  of  Paul ;  but  that  does  not 
suffice,  for  Paul  also  was  defeated.  The  fact  is, 
Christianity  had  no  founder,  and  no  definite  begin- 
ning. It  was  of  gradual  formation :  it  gradually 
freed  itself  from  Judaism  by  a  series  of  transactions. 


14  THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  KENAN. 

and  in  this  process  must  we  seek  for  the  true 
origin  of  Christianity,  —  we  ourselves  do  not  know 
where  or  how.  This  school,  generally,  does  not 
make  much  account  of  persons  and  personal  influ- 
ence. Baur  says,  somewhere,  "  Persons  are  mere 
names,  —  they  are  merely  the  bearers  of  the  ideas  ; 
and  in  this  consists  their  only  influence.  Persons 
are  nothing :  the  idea  is  all." 

The  Tiibingen  school  has  fallen  to  pieces,  and 
exists  no  more.  After  the  death  of  its  master,  it 
was  outwardly  broken ;  and  since  its  disciples  have 
partly  strayed  into  extremes,  and  partly  approached 
nearer  to  the  view  of  the  Church,  it  may  be  regard- 
ed as  inwardly  vanquished.  The  whole  partisan 
or  tendency  theory  —  which  detected  everywhere 
about  the  plain  and  simple  evangelists  the  most 
artful  designs,  in  every  line,  in  every  omission,  and 
in  every  expression  —  has  proved  to  be  a  mere 
fancy ;  and  the  evangelists,  whether  one  takes  the 
contents  of  their  stories  to  be  historical  or  unhis- 
torical,  are  admitted  to  have  been  plain,  simple 
people,  who  only  repeated  what  they  found.  And 
besides,  in  the  present  state  of  science,  it  is  no 
longer  possible  to  place  the  most  of  the  canonical 
writings  in  so  late  a  period  as  the  second  century. 
The  Tiibingen  school,  in  order  to  gain  room  and 
time  for  their  transactions,  for  the  whole  business 
of  the  compromise  between  the  Judaizing  and  the 
Pauline  tendencies,  —  which,  according  to  them, 
was  the  process  by  which  Christianity  began, — 
must  separate  the  dates  of  the  documents  of  this 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.        15 

process  —  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  —  as 
much  as  j^ossible,  and  bring  them  down  into  the 
second  century.  But  this  has  been  proved  to  be 
impossible.  One  decade  after  another  has  been 
wrimg  from  them ;  and,  however  one  may  stand  in 
other  respects,  it  can  no  longer  be  denied  upon  sci- 
entific grounds,  that  no  critical  arts  can  lead  us 
again  out  of  the  first  century.  Thus  has  the  Tiibin- 
gen  school  been  more  and  more  hemmed  in  ;  forced 
back,  one  may  say,  upon  the  very  person  of  Christ. 
It  is  plainly  shown  to  be  impossible  to  explain  the 
origin  of  Christianity,  without  determining  who 
Christ  was ;  without  proceeding  from  the  proposi- 
tion, that  the  whole  movement  was  begun  by  him, 
and  that  it  can  only  be  explained  by  his  personal 
life  and  influence. 

From  this  review  of  the  labors  and  development 
of  the  last  thirty  years,  it  may  be  understood  why 
the  person  of  Jesus  appears  again  in  the  fore- 
ground ;  why  the  subject  of  discussion  is  no  longer 
the  apostolic  and  the  post-apostolic  period,  but  the 
life  of  Jesus.  The  attempt,  undertaken  with  every 
scientific  means,  to  explain  Christianity  in  a  certain 
sense  without  the  person  of  Jesus,  by  a  mere  de- 
velopment of  ideas,  for  which  personality  was  of 
little  importance,  is  to  be  considered  thwarted. 
Whoever  refuses  to  renounce  that  explanation  is 
nevertheless  obliged  to  regard  the  person  of  Jesus ; 
he  is  obliged  to  answer  the  question,  "  What  think 
ye  of  Christ  ?  whose  son  is  he  ? "  He  can  no 
longer  be  disposed  of  in  a  single  remark,  as  Schweg- 
ler  treated  him ;   and  the  gulf  which  Baur  made 


16        THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

between  him  and  his  apostles  must  be  bridged  over. 
The  attack,  therefore,  is  all  the  more  dangerous, 
since  it  is  now  directed  against  the  very  heart  of 
the  Christian  faith ;  but  the  change  in  the  situation 
is  evidence  of  unmistakable  progress.  We  are  at 
least  rid  of  Christianity  without  Christ.  The  ground 
is  cleared ;  and,  though  the  fight  is  harder,  the  is- 
sue is  fortunately  nearer. 

This  progress  is  perceived  at  once  when  one  goes 
from  the  older  work  of  Strauss,  and  from  the  Tii- 
bingen  school,  to  Renan,  to  the  notorious  work, 
"  Vie  de  Jdsus."  The  Tiibingen  people  could  not 
tell  who  was  the  founder  of  Christianity.  They 
supposed  that  it  really  had  no  founder,  since  the 
person  is  entirely  subject  to  the  idea.  But  Renan 
makes  us  deal  decidedly  with  the  person  of  Jesus  ; 
and  of  nothing  is  Renan  more  sure,  than  that  he 
was  the  founder  of  the  new  religion, — that  from 
him  it  received  every  thing,  good  and  bad.  While 
Strauss  left  us  in  the  dark  concerning  who  Jesus 
was,  since  the  sources  seemed  to  him  insufficient 
to  determine  that  fact,  Renan  finds  much  more  of 
history  in  the  Gospels,  —  enough  to  describe  the  per- 
son of  Jesus  as  perfectly  as  the  person  of  a  Csesar 
or  Augustus,  or  any  other  man  of  ancient  times. 
His  image  no  longer  floats  in  mythical  clouds: 
Renan,  upon  a  background  of  landscape  and  his- 
tory, done  in  a  masterly  way,  draws  it  for  us  with 
sharp  outlines,  which  at  least  leave  nothing  to  be 
desired  in  clearness  and  decision. 

I  will  try,  in  the  first  place,  to  set  before  you  the 
principal  features  of  this  portrait. 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.        17 

Jesus  was  born  in  Nazareth,  of  humble  parents 
(the  account  of  his  birth  in  Bethlehem  and  the  at- 
tendant circumstances  is,  of  course,  a  mere  legend), 
and  he  was  consequently  without  more  education 
than  a  child  of  the  people  usually  had  at  that  time. 
But  from  the  beautiful  natural  scenes  of  Galilee, 
which  Renan  so  charmingly  describes,  and  from  his 
own  heart,  he  forms  a  consciousness  of  God  such 
as  no  one  before  or  after  him  has  had.  Then  he 
begins  to  preach  in  Galilee.  God  is  our  Father, 
and  all  men  are  brethren :  this  is  the  substance  of 
his  preaching.  He  prophesies  a  kingdom  of  God ; 
but  a  kingdom  of  God  which  is  within  man,  which 
he  must  create  within  his  own  heart  "  by  the  right- 
eousness of  his  will  and  the  poesy  of  his  soul."  * 
A  pure  service  of  God,  a  religion  without  priests 
and  without  ritual,  resting  wholly  upon  the  feelings 
of  the  heart,  upon  imitation  of  God,  upon  the  im- 
mediate communion  of  the  consciousness  with  the 
heavenly  Father,  —  this  is  the  ground-plan  of  this 
kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  a  perfectly  new  idea 
which  thus  enters  the  world,  —  the  idea  of  a  service 
of  God  based  upon  purity  of  heart  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man ;  an  idea  so  exalted,  that  even  now 
there  are  but  few  souls  fit  to  devote  themselves  to 
it.  The  outlines  of  this  idea  are  visible  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  "  the  most  beautiful  code  of 
perfect  life  that  any  moralist  has  traced.''  f    The 

♦  Vie  de  J^sus,  p.  139  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  187). 
t  Vie  de  J^sus,  p.  61  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  110). 

2 


18        THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

later  realistic  conception  of  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
as  yet  totally  wanting.  This  is  a  supplementary 
eclipse  of  the  idea,  an  error,  which  the  death  of 
Jesus  makes  us  forget.  Nor  did  he  at  first  work 
miracles.  This  was  the  time  when  the  exalted  idea 
stood  forth  in  its  purity,  "  some  months,  perhaps 
a  year,  during  which  God  really  lived  upon  the 
earth."  *  There  were  no  Christians  yet ;  but  Chris- 
tianity existed,  and  never  more  perfectly  than  at 
that  moment.  Jesus  added  nothing  more  to  it :  on 
the  contrary,  he  only  compromised  the  idea ;  "  for 
every  idea,  in  order  to  succeed,  must  needs  make  sac- 
rifices ;  none  comes  immaculate  out  of  the  struggle 
of  life."  t  Had  Jesus  died  then,  his  idea  would 
have  remained  purer,  and  he  would  have  been 
greater  in  the  sight  of  God ;  but,  unknown  to  men, 
he  would  have  been  lost  in  the  multitude  of  great 
souls  that  are  unknown.  It  is  not  enough  to  con- 
ceive a  great  idea :  one  must  also  make  it  effective. 
This  is  only  possible  through  ways  that  are  less 
pure.  Certainly,  if  the  gospel  contained  nothing 
more  than  several  chapters  of  Matthew  and  Luke, 
it  would  be  more  perfect ;  but  without  miracles  it 
would  not  have  overcome  the  world. 

Mark  these  propositions.  They  are  the  key  to 
Renan's  whole  representation.  The  idea,  which  at 
first  came  forth  in  perfect  purity,  is  more  and  more 
compromised,  —  this  is  essentially  the  whole  life  of 
Jesus.   Jesus,  in  order  to  realize  his  idea,  constantly 

*  Vie  de  Jdsus,  p.  58  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  107). 
t  Vie  de  J^sus,  p.  66  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  115). 


THE   LIFE   OP  JESUS   BY  RfiNAN.  19 

descends  from  the  heights  of  the  ideal,  enters  into 
real  life,  and  finally  succumbs. 

The  first  impulse  in  this  direction  came  from  his 
meeting  with  John  the  Baptist.  This  personage 
does  not  appear  to  have  had  a  good  influence  upon 
Jesus,  who  permits  himself  to  be  urged  out  of  his 
own  course,  and  follows  for  a  time  the  ways  of 
John  ;  for  he  baptizes  as  John  does,  —  an  outer  cere- 
mony, which  is  not  at  all  consistent  with  the  pure 
Christianity  of  Renan.  But  the  change  is  still 
deeper.  From  this  time  forward,  Jesus  exerts  him- 
self to  realize  his  ideal  in  the  world.  He  becomes 
a  revolutionary  character,  yet  one  who,  in  the  trans- 
cendental, spiritual  way,  desires  to  reform  the  inner 
world. 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  period  of  his  work. 
He  now  preaches  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  which  he 
himself  brings.  Here  is  a  radical  change  of  base, 
a  revolution,  which  shall  even  include  nature,  and 
which  banishes  sickness  and  death.  In  the  tower- 
ing flight  of  his  heroic  will,  he  believes  himself 
almighty,  a  reformer  of  the  universe.  But  not 
through  the  bloody  paths  of  political  revolution 
shall  his  ideal  be  reached  :  his  revolution  is  a  moral 
one.  There  is  yet  no  mention  of  the  angels  and 
the  trump  of  the  last  day.  The  kingdom  of  God, 
realized  by  men  among  men, — this  is  the  thought  of 
that  beautiful  Galilean  idyl  which  is  played  in  this 
act  of  his  life.  Riding  upon  a  gentle  ass,  by  the 
Lake  of  Gennesaret,  amidst  the  magnificent  scenes 
of  nature,  surrounded  by  a  multitude  that  applauds 


20        THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

him,  yonng  fishermen  liis  enthusiastic  friends, 
women  and  children  his  followers,  publicans  and 
Magdalenes  who  found  "  in  their  conversion  to  the 
sect  a  ready  means  of  reinstatement,"*  —  thus  he 
proceeds  through  the  country.  It  is  a  continual 
holiday,  an  uninterrupted  ecstasy ;  a  rural,  heavenly 
wedding-festival. 

This  beautiful  dream  also  vanishes.  He  is  seized 
with  the  desire  to  go  out  of  Galilee  into  Judaea,  to 
Jerusalem,  there  to  attack  Judaism  in  its  established 
fortress.  There,  however,  he  found  a  very  different 
place  from  rustic  Galilee;  there  he  did  not  have 
fishermen  and  country-girls  to  deal  with.  The  tem- 
ple with  its  priests  and  sacrifices  displeased  him : 
he  took  a  scourge  to  purify  it,  but  he  and  his  pro- 
vincials made  no  impression  upon  the  capital.  Out 
of  humor,  he  leaves  Jerusalem.  By  this  time  he 
has  entirely  lost  the  Jewish  faith ;  his  revolutionary 
passion  burns  higher  and  higher.  The  innocent 
aphorisms  of  the  first  period,  the  fine  moral  sermons 
of  the  second,  are  past.  The  Law  must  be  destroyed ; 
he  will  destroy  it :  the  Messiah  has  come  ;  he  is  the 
Messiah :  the  kingdom  of  God  shall  be  revealed ;  it 
is  he  through  whom  the  revelation  shall  be  made,  — 
this  is  now  the  substance  of  his  preaching.  He 
knows  that  he  shall  fall  a  sacrifice ;  but  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  only  to  be  gained  by  force.  These  are  very 
different  thoughts  from  those  of  the  time  of  the  Gali- 
lean idyl.  The  Messiah  is  known  as  the  son  of  David : 
Jesus  knows  very  well  that  he  is  not  descended  from 

♦  Vie  de  J^sus,  p.  134  (WUbour's  Trans.,  p.  182). 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.  21 

David,  but  he  also  knows  that  without  this  name  he 
can  accomplish  nothing.  Therefore  he  permits  its 
use,  —  at  first  unwillingly  ;  then  he  takes  pleasure  in 
it.  Here  lie  the  first  germs  of  the  legend,  which 
begins  to  grow  in  his  very  lifetime.  Miracles  were 
regarded  at  that  time  as  indispensable  signs  of  the 
divine,  as  necessary  proofs  of  the  prophetic,  calling. 
Jesus  was  confined  to  this  alternative,  —  he  must 
abandon  his  mission,  or  he  must  work  miracles.  He 
worked  miracles,  —  late,  to  be  sure,  and  against  his 
will.  Miracles  were  an  obligation  imposed  upon 
him  by  the  age  in  which  he  lived ;  a  concession 
which  was  forced  from  him.  Miracles  were  actually 
brought  to  him  and  put  upon  him.  People  thought 
that  he  must  work  miracles,  and  the  miracles  ap- 
peared. Sick  persons  believed  that  they  had 
recovered  by  his  touch :  and  he  not  only  permitted 
this ;  he  encouraged  it.  Yery  different  now  sounds 
the  preaching  about  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  now 
declares  concerning  this  kingdom,  that  he  will 
return  upon  the  clouds  of  heaven ;  he  talks  of  the 
day  of  judgment,  and  of  the  renewal  of  all  things. 
From  a  preacher  of  morals,  he  has  become  an  apoc- 
alyptic fanatic.  His  enmity  towards  the  ruling 
powers  grows  more  and  more  bitter;  his  speeches 
are  full  of  a  rage  that  has  hitherto  been  foreign  to 
them.  His  natural  gentleness  disappears;  he  be- 
comes austere,  dictatorial ;  he  will  no  longer  endure 
opposition ;  his  words  sometimes  sound  harsh,  even 
bizarre.  A  crisis  had  come :  it  was  time  for  death 
to  loose  the  knot. 


22        THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

This  occupation  in  Galilee  lasted  about  eighteen 
months ;  then  with  the  journey  to  Jerusalem  came 
the  final  decision.  His  stay  in  Jerusalem  was  un- 
comfortable. In  the  discussions  with  the  Pharisees 
about  disputed  points  of  the  Law,  Jesus  did  not 
have  the  superiority  which  on  other  occasions  was 
sustained  by  the  pure  morality,  that  here  rather 
placed  him  at  a  disadvantage.  Jesus  was  no  longer 
himself.  His  friends  felt  this ;  they  felt  it  necessary 
that  something  extraordinary  should  occur,  a  great 
miracle,  —  whereupon  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus 
was  arranged.  Lazarus,  pale  from  protracted  illness, 
is  laid  in  the  grave,  and  the  comedy  of  resurrection 
from  the  dead  is  played.  Jesus  at  least  knew  all 
about  it,  and  permitted  it.  He  could  not  curb  the 
desire  of  his  followers  for  miracles.  Fortunate  was 
it  that  death  soon  restored  him  to  the  divine  free- 
dom, and  delivered  him  from  the  fatal  necessities  of 
a  part  that  could  no  longer  be  sustained. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  give  at  length  Kenan's  ac- 
count of  his  death.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  the 
resurrection  is  not  historical.  The  excited  Mary 
Magdalene  believed  that  he  had  risen,  and  the  dis- 
ciples believed  it  with  lier.  "  Divine  power  of  love ! 
sacred  moments,  in  which  the  passion  of  a  hallucin- 
ated woman  gives  to  the  world  a  resurrected  God !  "  * 
Thus  Renan  concludes, — a  conclusion  quite  worthy 
of  such  a  biography. 

That  is  the  life  of  Jesus,  according  to  Renan.  A 
rare  picture,  so  strange,  so  different  from  all  former 

*  Vie  de  Jdsus,  p.  308  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  357). 


THE  LIFE   OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.  23 

portraits  of  the  Lord,  that  at  first  one  stands  before 
it  in  bewilderment,  and  must  exert  himself  to  recol- 
lect that  the  artist  intended  it  to  be  the  portrait  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  How  did  Renan  get  the  ma- 
terial for  this  strange,  this  perfectly  new  picture  ? 
Has  he  discovered  any  new  authorities  ?  No,  not 
one.  His  authorities  are  our  familiar  four  Gospels, 
to  which  there  is  only  added  as  a  fifth  Gospel,  as 
Renan  expresses  it,  torn  but  still  legible,  the  view 
of  the  locality,  the  view  of  the  East,  of  the  Holy 
Land,  of  its  landscapes,  of  its  manners  and  customs. 
He  has  no  new  authorities ;  but  he  knows  how  to 
handle  the  old  ones,  and  elicit  from  them  things 
which  no  one  had  ever  thought  of  before.  The 
truth  is,  that  the  Gospels  have  received  from  Renan 
an  arbitrary  treatment,  such  as  no  biographer  ever 
used  towards  his  authorities.  In  the  first  place,  they 
are  made  generally  uncertain.  Without  thorough 
investigation  of  their  credibility,  Renan  reaches  the 
conclusion  that  they  contain  much  that  is  historical, 
but  much  also  that  is  legendary.  Thus  he  has  per- 
fect freedom  in  the  use  of  them :  he  takes  what  suits 
him,  and  sets  aside  what  does  not  suit  his  history. 
He  recognizes,  on  the  whole,  much  more  history  in 
the  Gospels  than  Strauss  and  Baur.  But,  while  he 
admits  one  story  to  be  historical  to  the  smallest  de- 
tail, —  another  which  stands  by  its  side,  vouched  for 
by  the  same  historian,  is  totally  excluded  as  mere 
legend.  Why,  we  ask,  shall  not  this  be  true,  if 
that  is  true  ?  We  seek  in  vain  for  a  reply.  If  so 
much  is  authentic  as  is  assumed  by  Renan,  who  is 


24        THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  RENAN. 

apparently  struck  by  the  liveliness  and  clearness  of 
the  evangelical  narratives,  why  should  not  more  be 
true  ?  The  answer  to  this  is  not  always  clearly  ex- 
pressed, but  it  exists  essentially  throughout :  because 
nothing  supernatural  can  be  true.  For  this  reason 
the  Gospels  are  shuffled  like  a  pack  of  cards ;  they 
are  broken  into  single  parts  and  particles,  and  these 
are  put  together  again  in  a  mosaic,  without  any  re- 
gard for  the  chronology  and  the  plan  of  the  Gospels, 
according  to  an  original  chronology  for  which  the 
authorities  do  not  furnish  the  least  ground.  When 
this  is  not  sufficient,  aid  is  given  by  the  imagina- 
tion, which  is  very  fertile  in  Renan,  and  supplies 
him  with  information  which  no  authority  can  give. 

Do  you  wish  for  examples  of  these  performances  ? 
According  to  all  the  Gospels,  Jesus  meets  John  the 
Baptist  before  he  begins  his  public  work.  Renan, 
on  the  contrary,  knows  of  a  whole  period  of  his 
ministry  which  at  that  time  was  past.  He  also 
knows  what  the  Lord  taught  and  did  during  this 
period.  With  entire  arbitrariness,  this  fictitious 
period  is  filled  up  with  speeches  and  acts  of  Jesus, 
which  are  related  by  the  evangelists  as  first  taking 
place  after  his  meeting  with  John  the  Baptist.  If 
any  thing  in  the  life  of  Jesus  is  established,  it  is  this, 
that  Jesus  himself  instituted  the  Lord's  Supper.  If 
the  testimony  of  the  three  evangelists  is  not  suffi- 
cient, we  have  the  unsuspected  testimony  of  Paul ; 
and  it  is  also  vouched  for  by  the  admitted,  univer- 
sal practice  of  the  primitive  Church.  Renan,  how- 
ever, knows  better  than  this.    Jesus  did  not  institute 


THE  LIFE  OP   JESUS  BY  RENAN.  25 

the  Lord's  Supper.  How  does  Eenan  know  this? 
Is  it  not  told  by  the  first  three  evangelists,  whom  he 
believes  implicitly  concerning  other  things  ?  Renan 
says  John  does  not  relate  it.  But  Renan  believes 
John  least  of  all :  indeed,  in  his  eyes  John  is  the  most 
unreliable  witness ;  the  book  was  not  in  existence 
until  150,  and  the  discourses  it  contains  are  only 
Platonic  dialogues  in  an  entirely  foreign,  mythical 
style  !  And,  if  tliis  view  is  not  accepted,  the  silence 
of  John  nevertheless  tells  more  in  this  case  than  the 
speech  of  the  others.  The  treatment  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  is  beyond  measure  baseless  in  its  arbitrari- 
ness. The  book  is  not  authentic;  and  yet  Renan 
uses  it  as  a  good  authority  whenever  it  suits  him. 
To  all  this  is  added  the  uncontrolled,  ruling,  and 
creative  imagination.  It  is  not  only  said  that  Jesus 
rode  on  an  ass  through  Galilee,  —  an  incident  which 
Renan  must  have  got  from  some  sixth  Gospel, — but 
Renan  also  composes  the  whole  Galilean  idyl :  where 
the  wife  of  Pilate  is  minutely  described  for  us,  as 
she  looks  out  of  her  window,  and  sees  the  charming 
figure  of  Jesus ;  where  also  brand-new  speeches  are 
put  into  the  mouth  of  the  Lord,  —  for  instance,  that 
the  law  is  abolished,  while  the  evangelists  make  him 
say  that  he  has  come,  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil. 
That  is  the  origin  of  this  medley  of  truth  and  fiction, 
—  an  historical  romance,  a  favorite  kind  of  compo- 
sition nowadays. 

What  is  the  result  ?  Who  is  Jesus,  according  to 
this  description  ?  Shall  I  bluntly  repeat  it  ? — a  fana- 
tic, who  gradually  becomes  an  impostor,  and  whom 


26  THE  LIFE   OF   JESUS   BY  RENAN. 


death  finally  takes  off  at  the  earliest  moment  from 
the  embarrassment  of  complications  which  he  had 
himself  prepared.  Or  shall  I  describe  his  progress 
more  in  detail?  first,  a  pious,  amiable  fanatic,  who 
set  before  himself  a  precious,  but,  alas !  impracticable 
ideal ;  then  a  gloomier  fanatic,  who  dreams  of  the 
trump  of  the  judgment-day,  of  his  second  coming, 
of  a  great  catastrophe  and  revolution  of  the  world ; 
then  an  impostor  against  his  own  will,  who  permits 
himself  to  be  forced  to  one  concession  after  another ; 
finally,  an  intentional  impostor.  The  fine  words,  of 
which  Kenan  is  so  remarkable  a  master,  are  here 
of  no  avail :  the  things  themselves  speak.  Decide 
for  yourselves  in  this  matter :  if  Jesus  permits  the 
name  "  son  of  David  "  to  be  given  him,  without  contra- 
dicting it,  even  taking  pleasure  in  it,  although  he 
knows  that  he  is  not  descended  from  David,  are  we 
not  already  on  the  boundary  of  imposture  ?  If,  as 
Renan  explains,  he  now  and  then  used  this  innocent 
artifice,  —  telling  his  disciples  about  things  which  he 
had  experienced  in  a  perfectly  natural  way ;  inci- 
dents from  their  own  lives  of  which  he  had  heard, 
as  if  they  had  come  to  him  by  supernatural  means, 
—  what  name  has  this  artifice  among  honest  men  ? 
He  pretends  to  work  miracles,  and  works  none,  as 
he  well  knows  :  what  is  this  but  imposture  ?  And 
then  that  comedy  in  Bethany,  in  which,  if  he  did 
not  make  the  plot,  he  at  least  took  part.  That  is 
really  so  strong  a  bit,  that  they  were  ashamed  to 
dish  it  up  for  us  Germans.  It  is  wanting  at  least 
in  a  German  edition  which  I  have  consulted. 


THE  LIFE   OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.  27 

How  does  Renan  come  to  this  ?  If  I  have  a  cor- 
rect impression  of  his  description,  I  believe  that  it 
is  not  pleasant  for  him  to  come  to  it :  he  would  like 
to  avoid  it ;  he  would  like  to  represent  the  Lord  as 
more  purely  moral,  if  he  could.  But,  according  to 
his  presumptions,  this  is  impossible.  Others  have 
taken  the  course  of  declaring  all  such  things  to  be 
unhistorical :  they  assert  that  Jesus  never  said  he 
should  come  again  upon  the  clouds,  —  that  this  was 
merely  a  misunderstanding  of  the  disciples  ;  they 
have  declared  such  miracles  as  the  resurrection  of 
Lazarus  to  be  nothing  but  fiction,  without  even  a 
kernel  of  history.  This  Renan  cannot  do ;  he  has 
too  much  historical  sense  ;  he  admits  too  much 
authentic  historical  tradition  in  the  authorities  to 
make  this  possible  for  him.  But  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  is  unable  to  recognize  any  thing  supernat- 
ural in  the  person  and  the  works  of  the  Lord,  there 
is  no  other  course  left  for  him  than  that  which  he  has 
taken.  If  Jesus  actually  said  that  he  should  return 
upon  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  this  Renan  does  not 
venture  to  deny,  what  can  we  see  in  it  but  fanati- 
cism if  he  is  not  the  Son  of  God  from  heaven  ?  If 
the  Lord  actually  told  the  disciples  about  events  in 
their  lives  which  had  taken  place  without  his  knowl- 
edge, and  Renan  must  admit  this  on  the  ground  of 
the  authorities,  how  shall  he  explain  it  if  he  refuses 
once  for  all  to  allow  a  higher  knowledge  in  Jesus, 
except  as  a  little  trick,  an  innocent  deception,  by 
which  he  sought  to  convince  them  ?  It  is  the  same 
with  the  miracles:  Renan  has  too  much  historical 


28  THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  EENAN. 

sense  not  to  grant,  that  something  must  have  oc- 
curred dm-ing  the  life  of  the  Lord  which  his  con- 
temporaries at  least  supposed  to  be  miracles.  But, 
much  as  may  be  attributed  to  rumor  and  legend,  it 
is  impossible  to  account  for  all  in  this  way.  Much 
of  it  is  very  easily  explained.  The  sick  people  be- 
lieved that  Jesus  could  heal  them;  and  therefore 
they  were  healed,  or  at  all  events  they  thought  they 
were  healed.  There  is  still  a  good  deal  left.  How 
shall  he  explain  that,  except  by  the  assumption  of 
more  or  less  intentional  imposture  ?  Take  the 
story  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus :  Renan  cannot  ex- 
plain this  as  nothing  but  rumor.  Something  of  the 
kind  must  have  occurred,  which  made  upon  the  peo- 
ple of  the  time  the  impression  of  a  resurrection  of 
a  dead  person.  What  choice  is  there  but  to  say 
either  a  man  was  actually  raised  from  the  dead, 
or  a  deception  was  practised  ?  Since  Renan  will 
not  say  the  former,  he  must  say  the  latter.  We 
may  truly  learn  from  Renan  whither  one  is  led, 
who,  on  the  one  hand,  admits  the  records  of  the 
evangelists  to  be  historical,  even  if  it  is  only  in 
their  outlines,  —  and  this  must  be  admitted  by  any 
one  who  is  not  willing  to  fall  into  a  most  unscien- 
tific arbitrariness ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  refuses 
to  acknowledge  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  become 
man.  Then,  it  is  true,  one  gets  a  mere  man,  but 
most  certainly  not  a  purely  moral  one,  a  pattern 
of  genuine  humanity ;  but  one  that  is  from  intrinsic 
necessity  a  fanatic  and  an  impostor. 

This,  then,  is  the  author  of  Christianity ;  this  the 


THE  LIFE  OP  JESUS  BY  RENAN.        29 

founder  of  the  Church !  Now,  I  pray  you,  look  for 
a  moment  at  the  facts :  here  is  Christianity,  here  is 
the  Church,  here  is  the  whole  Christian  life  and  its 
unfailing  fruits,  its  blessed  influences  upon  indivi- 
duals, upon  entire  nations,  upon  all  mankind. 
These  are  facts.  They  must  have,  according  to 
reasonable  thinking,  a  sufficient  cause.  Answer 
calmly  for  yourselves  the  question,  whether  this 
life  of  Jesus,  as  Renan  tells  it,  is  a  sufficient  cause  ; 
whether  this  Jesus  of  Renan  can  be  the  author  of 
such  a  religion,  the  founder  of  such  a  Church.  Is 
not  this  a  supposition  quite  incomprehensible,  quite 
impossible  ?  Tell  me,  if  you  can,  how  it  comes  to 
pass  :  there  lives  in  Palestine  this  Jesus,  a  fanatic 
who  believes  himself  to  be  almighty,  without  being 
so ;  who  dreams  that  he  is  the  judge  of  the  world, 
and  is  only  a  man ;  who  pretends  to  work  miracles, 
and  works  none ;  who  at  last  turns  impostor,  and 
perishes,  ruined  by  his  own  guilt.  Twenty  years 
after  his  death,  the  same  persons  who  were  his  as- 
sociates declare  him  to  be  a  God,  and,  what  is 
most  strange,  they  have  faith  in  this ;  then  things 
are  told  of  him,  miracles,  which  never  occurred. 
He  had  consented  to  imposture ;  and  this  is  not 
only  forgotten,  but  he  is  made  the  author  of  a  reli- 
gion  which  condemns  all  deception  most  severely : 
he  is  even  made  to  say  that  lying  is  from  the  devil. 
There  are  such  men  as  this  Paul,  who,  whatever 
else  may  be  said  of  him,  was  a  sober,  calm  man, 
remarkably  clear-headed,  thoroughly  honest ;  and  he 
changes  from  a  persecutor  to  his  apostle.     His  ene- 


30        THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  KENAN. 

mies  persecute  him  to  death,  accuse  him  before  the 
court,  make  every  efifort  in  their  po^er  to  destroy 
his  followers ;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  evidence  that 
the  miracles  which  he  told  were  denied  by  them,  or 
that  they  ever  attempted  to  prove  them  to  be  im- 
posture, although  as  his  contemporaries  they  must 
have  had  proof  enough  at  their  command.  Solve 
for  me  only  one  of  these  many  riddles. 

Let  us,  however,  listen  to  Renan  himself.  He 
perhaps  has  found  the  solution.  He  first  complains 
that  we  always  speak  so  rudely  of  lying  and  impos- 
ture. "  It  is  easy  for  us,  impotent  as  we  are,  to 
call  this  falsehood,  and,  proud  of  our  timid  honesty, 
to  treat  with  contempt  the  heroes  who  accepted, 
under  other  conditions,  the  battle  of  life.  When 
we  shall  have  done  with  our  scruples  what  they  did 
with  their  falsehoods,  we  shall  have  the  right  to  be 
severe  upon  them."  *  But,  you  will  say,  that  is  a 
justification  of  lying  for  pious  purposes.  Certainly 
it  is ;  and  it  is  not  merely  given  in  the  heat  of  a 
moment,  but  just  here  appears  Kenan's  whole  view 
of  life  and  the  world.  You  remember  the  proposi- 
tions which  I  have  already  quoted,  that  the  idea 
cannot  be  realized  without  losing  its  purity.  Here 
you  have  those  propositions  in  plainer  language. 
"  Such  is  the  feebleness  of  the  human  mind,  that 
the  best  causes  are  ordinarily  gained  only  for  bad 
reasons."  f  "  There  is  no  great  foundation  which 
does  not  repose  upon  legend."  *    "  All  great  things 

*  Vie  de  Jdsus,  p.  181  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  pp.  227,  228). 
t  Vie  de  J^sua,  p.  184  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  231). 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.        31 

are  achieved  by  the  people :  now  the  people  are  led 
only  by  yielding  to  their  ideas."  *  "He  who  takes 
humanity  with  its  illusions,  and  seeks  to  act  upon 
it  and  with  it,  cannot  be  blamed."  *  "  The  only 
guilt  in  such  a  case  is  that  of  humanity,  which  ivill 
be  deceived."  *  One  cannot  be  plainer.  Here  you 
have  the  proposition  in  its  naked  simplicity.  The 
world  will  be  deceived,  therefore  it  is  deceived ; 
and  this  proposition  as  the  foundation,  as  the  canon 
and  standard,  of  the  life  of  Jesus !  Take  notice 
here,  that  these  are  the  moral  foundations  of  those 
who  talk  so  much  about  morality,  and  plume  them- 
selves upon  reducing  Christianity  to  its  simple  moral 
principles. 

There  remains  one  more  step  for  us  to  take.  A 
man's  view  of  the  world  depends  upon  the  concep- 
tion which  he  has  of  God.  Let  us  test  Renan  in 
this  deepest  base.  Has  Renan  any  God  left?  It 
seems  so.  He  certainly  glorifies  Jesus  above  all 
men,  because  he  had  a  pure  consciousness  of  God, 
such  as  no  one  before  him  and  no  one  after  him  has 
ever  had.  Pure  Chi-istianity,  according  to  his  view, 
is  nothing  else  than  this  preaching  about  God,  the 
Father  of  all  mankind.  On  the  contrary,  it  must 
look  suspicious  when  Renan  explains  the  substance 
of  faith  as  a  Utopia ;  still  more  when  he  frequently 
attributes  to  Jesus  pantheistic-colored  thoughts, — 
when  he  says  of  him,  that,  according  to  his  poetic 
conception,  one  breath  of  God  pervades  the  whole 
universe.     K  we    inquire,  elsewhere,  how  Renan 

*  Vie  de  J^aus,  p.  181  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  pp.  227,  228). 


32  THE  LIFE   OP   JESUS   BY  KENAN. 

expresses  himself  concerning  this  question,  there 
can  be  hardly  a  doubt  left  about  his  real  thoughts. 
There  is  an  article  in  the  "  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes"*  for  1863,  a  letter  from  Renan  to  Berthe- 
lot,  the  chemist,  which  in  its  expressions  concerning 
the  essence  of  God  is  in  many  respects  obscure  and 
indistinct :  but  this  much  is  clear,  that  Renan' s  God 
is  not  the  free  personal  God  of  the  Scriptm^es ;  not 
the  Creator  of  the  world,  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Je- 
sus Christ.  It  is  evident  that  his  views  are  strongly 
tinged  with  pantheism.  The  consciousness  of  God, 
therefore,  which  Jesus  had  was  nothing :  Renan  has 
another.  There  is  no  such  heavenly  Father  as 
Jesus  declares, —  at  least  Renan  does  not  believe  in 
him ;  and,  although  he  occasionally  acts  as  if  he 
believed  in  this  heavenly  Father,  it  is  fair  enough 
to  suppose,  that,  according  to  his  previously  devel- 
oped propositions,  this  is  only  an  accommodation  to 
the  notions  of  the  people  whom  he  desires  to  influ- 
ence. The  guilt  of  such  an  accommodation  falls, 
of  course,  not  upon  him,  but  upon  the  people  who 
still  hold  fast  the  old  ideas.  The  time  will  come, 
perhaps,  when  this  veil  also  may  be  dropped,  and, 
instead  of  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  one 
can  openly  preach  the  Pan-God  to  the  people. 

Renan  in  one  place  describes  in  vivid  colors  the 
heights  of  Nazareth,  and  the  view  one  has  from 
there  of  the  beautiful  outlines  of  Carmel  falling 
precipitously  to  the  sea,  of  the  mountains  of  Gilboa, 
the  gracefully  rounded  Tabor,  and,  far  beyond,  the 

♦  Tome  47,  Livraison  15.     Octobre,  1863. 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  BY  RENAN.        33 

valley  of  the  Jordan.  Then  he  breaks  forth  with 
these  spirited  words :  "  If  ever  the  world,  still 
Christian,  but  having  obtained  a  better  idea  of  what 
constitutes  respect  for  origins,  shall  desire  to  sub- 
stitute authentic  holy  places  for  the  mean  and 
apocryjohal  sanctuaries  which  were  seized  upon  by 
the  piety  of  the  barbarous  ages,  it  is  upon  this 
height  of  Nazareth  that  it  will  build  its  temple."  * 
That  will  probably  be  the  temple  where  Sakya-Muni, 
Mohammed  and  Jesus,  whom  Renan  is  so  fond  of 
classing  together,  shall  peacefully  receive  a  common 
veneration,  and  mankind,  free  at  last,  shall  worship 
the  God  of  Renan. 

Is  it  an  accident  that  Renan  places  this  temple 
just  at  Nazareth  ?  Then  it  is  certainly  a  remark- 
able accident.  For  you  remember  the  reception 
Jesus  met  with  in  this  same  Nazareth,  and  what  we 
find  written  of  Nazareth :  "  They  were  offended  at 
him,"  and  "  He  marvelled  because  of  their  un- 
belief." 

*  Vie  de  J^sus,  p.  21  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  71). 


SECOND  DISCOURSE. 

"THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS  PORTRAYED,"* 
BY  SCHENKEL. 

«'A  NEW  LIEE  OF  JESUS,"  f  BY  STRAUSS. 


npHE  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  by  Kenan,  which  was  dis- 
-*•  cussed  at  our  last  meeting,  has  had  a  wide 
influence.  Translated  into  almost  every  language  of 
civilized  Europe,  it  has  been  spread  in  many  thous- 
ands of  copies  ;  mostly,  however,  among  the  nations 
speaking  the  Romanic  languages,  and  within  the  do- 
main of  the  Romish  Church,  to  which  Renan  origin- 
ally belonged.  It  might  easily  be  shown,  that  the 
whole  character  of  the  book  exactly  corresponds  to 
this  sphere.  It  may  be  remarked,  by  the  way,  that 
the  wide  circulation  of  the  book  in  Roman-Catholic 
countries,  the  eagerness  with  which  it  has  there 
been,  as  it  were,  devoured,  is  also  a  proof  that  the 
popular  faith  within  the  Romish  church  is  not  in  so 
good  a  state  as  is  often  declared ;  that  the  unchris- 
tianizing  of  the  masses,  especially  of  the  educated 
classes,  is  going  on  there,  too,  to  a  greater  degree 

*  Title  of  Furness's  Translation, 
t  Title  of  Authorized  Translation. 


THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL  AND   STRAUSS.  35 

perhaps  than  with  us,  although  it  is  not  so  con- 
spicuous by  the  side  of  the  apparently  greater  power 
of  the  Church.  The  book  has  been  generally  offered 
to  our  German  people  in  editions  which  omit,  not 
only  what  there  is  of  rather  learned  matter  in  the 
original,  but  also  the  many  too  absurdly  frivolous 
assertions,  a  sample  of  which  I  cited  in  my  last  dis- 
course. It  was  clearly  seen,  however,  that  a  differ- 
ent kind  of  viand  was  required  for  us  Germans ; 
and  in  consequence  of  the  excitement  caused  by 
Kenan,  and  by  the  great  effect  of  his  book,  attempts 
were  made  to  supply  our  wants.  Strauss,  it  is  true, 
had  already  decided  to  prepare  a  new  edition  of  his 
"  Life  of  Jesus  "  for  the  German  people,  and  had 
prepared  part  of  it  before  the  work  of  Kenan  ap- 
peared, —  another  sign  of  how  much  of  this  thing 
lay  in  the  air ;  but  Schenkel  was  first  incited  by 
the  appearance  of  Kenan's  work  to  write  his 
"  Character  of  Jesus  Portrayed." 

He  directly  says,  in  the  Preface  of  his  book,  that 
the  sensation  caused  by  Kenan's  "  Life  of  Jesus  "  for- 
cibly reminded  him  "  of  the  necessity  of  meeting 
the  deep  want  of  our  time,  which  demands  a  gen- 
uinely human,  truly  historical  representation  of 
Jesus."  *  For  this  purpose  Schenkel  proposes  not 
to  write  precisely  a  Life  of  Jesus,  but  only  to  por- 
tray the  "  Character  of  Jesus."  But  the  book 
which  bears  this  title  is  really  a  Life  of  Jesus. 
Schenkel  tells  us  the  whole  life  of  the  Lord,  from 
Ms  birth  to  his  death  ;   he  gives,  on  the  whole, 

*  Schenkel's  Characterbild,  S.  iv.  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  xxiv). 


36  THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

what  one  expects  from  a  Life  of  Jesus.  But  lie 
gained  this  advantage  through  the  title,  —  he  was 
not  bound  to  deal  impartially  with  every  detail ; 
an  advantage  which  he  has  known  how  to  use  in 
the  controversies  that  have  arisen  over  his  book. 

If  I  must  begin  again  by  giving  you  a  brief  srnn- 
mary  of  the  contents  of  this  book,  by  trying  to  copy 
the  chief  features  of  the  picture  which  Schenkel 
has  sketched,  I  must  also  begin  with  a  complaint. 
Coming  from  Renan  to  Schenkel,  one  misses  at 
once  the  clear  and  decided  lines  with  which  Renan 
draws  the  portrait  of  Jesus.  With  Schenkel,  every 
thing  is  fleeting  and  misty.  With  Renan  you  al- 
ways know  your  bearings,  but  with  Schenkel  it  is 
often  impossible  to  tell  where  you  are  ;  and,  when 
you  have  taken  great  pains  to  extract  from  the 
plentiful  words  his  real  opinion,  you  must  after- 
wards observe  with  astonishment  that  you  have 
entirely  misunderstood  him.  Take  a  single  in- 
stance of  this.  Friend  and  enemy  had  understood 
from  his  book,  that  Schenkel  denied  the  actual 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  —  his  friends  with  gratifica- 
tion, for  they  inferred  from  this  that  he  had  now 
broken  entirely  with  the  faith  of  the  Church  ;  his 
opponents  with  indignation,  for  they  made  this  very 
denial  of  the  resurrection  the  chief  reproach  against 
him.  All  at  once  Schenkel  comes  out,  and  com- 
plains that  he  has  been  entirely  misunderstood :  he 
by  no  means  denied  the  resurrection  ;  he  did  not 
make  it,  as  his  opponents  asserted  (not  only  his 
opponents,  his  friends  likewise),  a  mere  spiritual 


THE   VIEWS   OP  SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  37 

occurrence  in  the  souls  of  the  disciples  ;  but  he 
plainly  recognized  the  reality  of  the  appearance  of 
the  risen  Jesus  as  the  actual  manifestation  of  his 
surviving  personality  in  its  transformed  and  glo- 
rified state.  It  is  certainly  unfortunate  when  any 
one  expresses  himself  so  indistinctly  concerning 
such  an  important  matter,  that  his  readers  entirely 
misunderstand  him. 

He  is  therefore  in  an  awkward  situation  who 
has  to  copy  the  picture  which  Schcnkel  has  drawn. 
It  is  hard  to  understand  it  correctly,  and  it  is  still 
harder  to  describe  it  to  another.  He  has  to  repre- 
sent this  indistinctness,  this  variableness,  and  yet 
say  what  Schenkel  really  means.  The  attempt  must 
be  made  ;  but  I  beg  you  not  to  blame  me  if  the  j)ic- 
ture  proves  to  be  rather  poor.  The  cloud  of  words 
with  which  Schenkel  envelops  the  particular  fea- 
tures, I  certainly  cannot  furnish. 

Jesus,  the  son  of  Joseph  the  carpenter,  of  Naza- 
reth (Schenkel  also  sets  aside  the  supernatural 
birth  as  a  legend),  was  a  child  of  the  people,  and 
grew  up  in  narrow  circumstances.  This  was  just 
the  right  preparation  for  him,  the  future  man  of  the 
people.  The  strength  of  his  religious  feelings  showed 
itself  very  early ;  especially  when,  a  boy  twelve  years 
old,  he  attended  for  the  first  time  the  feast  at  Je- 
rusalem. His  relation  to  John  the  Baptist  is  to  be 
conceived  as  totally  different  from  the  representation 
of  it  given  by  the  evangelists.  John's  attempt  to 
cause  a  moral  revival  of  his  people  was  wholly  a 
mistake.     John  is  the  man  who  puts  new  cloth  on 


38  THE   VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

an  old  garment.  Therefore  the  ways  of  Jesus  soon 
separate  from  those  of  John.  It  is  true  that  his 
Messianic  calling  was  not  yet  clear  to  Jesus;  but 
this  was  clear,  that  the  theocracy  possessed  no  power 
for  reviving  the  people  ;  that  an  act  of  God  was  neces- 
sary to  do  it :  and  he  foreboded  at  least  that  this 
divine  act  should  proceed  from  himself. 

He  consequently  comes  forth  as  a  teacher,  with 
the  sermon,  " '  The  time  is  fulfilled  ; '  i.e.,  the  old 
time  of  the  theocracy,  of  ceremonial  tutelage,  and 
of  the  religion  of  forms  and  formulas,""^  —  this  old 
time  is  past,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand.  Re- 
pentance is  the  condition  of  admission  into  it. 
Jesus  comes  forth,  not  as  the  Messiah,  but  as  the 
founder  of  a  new  communion  of  true  Israelites,  inde- 
pendent of  the  old  theocratic  conditions.  He  collects 
the  first  disciples  as  a  nucleus  of  this,  and  tries  to 
exert  an  influence,  especially  among  the  middle 
classes  of  the  people,  in  the  places  about  the  Lake  of 
Gennesaret.  In  Capernaum,  he  performs  the  first 
act  which  appears  to  the  people  to  be  a  miracle. 
He  heals  one  who  is  possessed,  —  possessed  with  a 
devil.  According  to  Schenkel's  view,  this  person 
was  not  possessed:  that  was  merely  imagined  by 
the  superstition  of  the  age,  concerning  which^it  was 
not  the  mission  of  Jesus  to  enlighten  the  people. 
It  is  also  not  certain  that  the  man  was  healed  for 
ever ;  but  Jesus  quieted  his  convulsions  by  taking 
hold  of  him  kindly,  and  speaking  to  him  in  a  com- 
forting way.     He  was  now  regarded  by  the  people 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  41  (Fumess's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  92). 


THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  39 

as  a  worker  of  miracles.  He  had  this  reputation 
without  being  one.  Schenkel  admits,  that  Jesus, 
though  it  was  a  disagreeable  and  unwilling  task, 
healed  sick  persons  by  his  comforting  words  and 
kind  touch  ;  but  his  power  can  be  psychologically 
explained,  not  as  a  miracle,  but  as  a  natural  gift. 
Real  miracles,  rays  of  his  divine  nature,  Schenkel 
decidedly  denies.  What  was  supposed  to  be  mira- 
cle, all  happened  within  the  limits  of  nature.  In 
this  way,  a  whole  list  of  miracles  are  naturally 
explained.  "What  cannot  be  explained  in  this  way, 
even  by  Schenkel,  is  supposed  to  be  either  wholly 
or  partially  legend,  based  upon  some  natural  event 
which  afterwards  received  legendary  embellishment, 
and  became  a  miracle.  For  instance,  the  miracle  at 
the  wedding  in  Cana.  Here  it  is  only  historical  that 
Jesus  went  to  the  wedding,  and  thought  it  not  un- 
becoming to  attend  to  getting  the  wine  that  was 
wanted.  In  after  times,  however,  it  was  thought 
that  this  was  unbecoming,  and  the  history  was 
twisted  into  a  legend,  that  Jesus  procured  the  wine 
by  a  miracle  of  almighty  power. 

Thus  passes  the  first  period  of  the  work  of  Jesus. 
The  opposition  of  the  hierarchical  party  drives  him 
farther.  The  orthodox,  scholastic  theologians,  the 
party  of  the  high-churchmen, — thus  Schenkel  gladly 
designates  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, — are  offended 
because  he  breaks  the  Sabbath.  Thereupon  he  pro- 
claims freedom  of  worship,  and  appears  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  true  human  worth  and  eternal  human 
rights.     This  completed,  inwardly,  the  breach  with 


40  THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

the  liigli-churchmen.  In  controversy  with  them, 
there  had  dawned  upon  Jesus  "  the  conviction  that 
the  eternal  Truth,  which  is  from  our  Father  in 
heaven,  and  which  is  the  central  life  of  things,  had 
embodied  itself  anew  in  him  directly  and  originally ; 
whilst  all  the  learning  of  the  schools,  and  all  priestly 
mediation  and  ceremonial  observances,  were  but  as 
a  gold-fringed  covering,  hiding  from  sight  all  that  is 
imperishable  in  the  divine,  all  that  is  real  in  human- 
ity." —  "  Ignorant  obedience,  or  willing  love,  in  the 
domain  of  religion  and  morality,  —  this  was  now 
the  question."  * 

Jesus  did  not  even  yet  presume  to  be  the  Messiah, 
but  the  deliverer,  the  liberator,  of  his  people.  The 
opposition  to  him  gradually  cleared  his  views,  and 
he  took  an  important  step  in  the  direction  of  estab- 
lishing a  new  Israelitish  religious  communion  (it 
was  nothing  more  as  yet),  by  selecting  the  twelve, 
and  sending  them  forth.  Therein  lay  a  germ,  that 
was  to  grow  much  greater.  The  establishment  of  the 
true  Israel,  this  was  the  next  object  of  Jesus'  work. 
But  a  kingdom  of  the  Spirit,  of  truth,  of  righteous- 
ness, of  love,  that  has  its  place  within  men,  is  bound 
by  no  external  statutes  ;  is  not  dependent  upon  tra- 
ditions and  ceremonies,  upon  forms  and  formulas, 
—  such  a  kingdom  belongs  to  no  single  nation,  but 
to  mankind  itself.  Consequently,  Jesus  looked 
towards  the  Gentile  world.  He  visited  the  region 
about  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  went  to  Csesarea  Philippi. 
This  was  not  precisely  a  missionary  journey :   its 

*  Schenkel's  Char.  S.  66  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  pp.  146,  147). 


THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  41 

object  was  rather  to  test  the  susceptibility  of  the 
Gentile  world. 

Upon  his  return,  he  utters  the  decisive  word :  he 
declares  himself  to  be  the  Messiah.  This  must  have 
been  hard  for  him  to  do,  for  he  knew  that  the  task 
of  the  Messiah  in  the  Old  Testament  was  very  dif- 
ferent from  his  own  ;  namely,  to  exalt  the  priestly 
rule  of  Israel  to  the  dominion  of  the  world,  the  Old- 
Testament  theocracy  to  the  religion  of  the  world, 
while  he  wished  to  found  a  spiritual  kingdom.  He 
also  knew  that  he  could  not  fulfil  the  Messianic 
expectations  of  the  people.  Nevertheless  he  declared 
himself  to  be  the  Messiah.  He  was  obliged  to  do 
this ;  for  it  was  the  only  way  to  accomplish  his  pur- 
pose with  a  large  part  of  the  people.  He  was,  con- 
sequently, obliged  to  consent  to  the  application  of 
Old-Testament  Messianic  ideas  to  his  person,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  try  to  clear  them  of  the  impure 
elements  attached  to  them,  in  order  thus  to  fulfil 
them  in  their  true  sense.  The  fulfilment  of  the  old 
covenant  in  his  person  was,  it  is  true,  the  non-fulfil- 
ment of  all  the  theocratic  expectations.  A  suffering 
Messiah  was,  to  the  Jews,  a  contradiction  ;  and  yet 
it  was  necessary  that  he  should  become  a  suffering 
Messiah.  Only  in  suffering  could  his  destiny  be 
fulfilled ;  suffering  was  to  become  the  true  sanction 
of  his  redeeming  mission. 

The  departure  to  Jerusalem  begins  the  last  pe- 
riod in  the  life  of  the  Lord, — the  school  of  sorrow, 
the  completion  of  his  work.  The  entry  into  Jeru- 
salem brings  on  the  actual  decision.     By  this  he 


42  THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

put  arms  into  his  enemies'  hands.  He  came  out 
openly  as  Messiah,  not  merely  by  entering  the  city 
in  this  character,  but  by  the  more  conspicuous  Mes- 
sianic act  of  purifying  the  temple,  by  which  he 
wished  to  show  that  this  house  of  stone  was  de- 
voted to  destruction;  that  the  destruction  of  the 
theocratic  dominion  and  the  external  temple-service 
was  already  an  actual  fact.  He  wished  to  prove 
thereby  his  right  to  set  up,  in  place  of  this  temple 
of  stone,  which  was  desecrated  by  its  own  keepers, 
the  new,  great,  spiritual  temple  of  the  nations.  He 
thereupon  proclaimed  himself  as  the  Messiah  of 
a  spiritual  kingdom  of  God.  His  enemies  were 
now  able  to  prosecute  him.  Jesus  knew  that  he 
had  transgressed  the  letter  of  the  antiquated  law. 
Treachery  then  delivered  him  into  the  hands  of  his 
enemies.  His  death  became  the  source  of  blessing 
and  honor.  The  merciful  love,  the  representative 
of  which  he  died,  arraigned  the  heartless  law  whose 
letter  had  put  him  to  death.  This  law  now  came 
upon  the  bench  of  the  accused,  and  with  it  the 
whole  theocratic  institution.  The  hierarchy  was 
now  judged,  her  law  condemned ;  her  formalism 
had  become  an  abomination  through  the  cross,  which 
had  been  lifted  up  as  the  symbol  of  innocence,  pu- 
rity, truth,  justice,  love,  and  freedom.  Thus  is  his 
death  the  expiation  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  This 
it  was,  because  through  its  blessed  results  the  op- 
eration of  the  law  was  abolished ;  because  through 
it  there  came  to  mankind  the  knowledge  that  God 
does  not  apply  to  sin  the  standard  of  the  dead  let- 


THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  43 

ter  of  prescription.  The  dead  Christ  is  also  the 
eternally  living :  he  lives  in  his  people.  The  living 
Christ  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Church.  He  lives  in  all 
those  in  whom  his  word  has  become  spirit  and  life. 
Schenkel  claims  that  this  representation  of  his 
gives  a  truly  historical  and  genuinely  human  por- 
trait of  Jesus.  The  claim  is  the  more  significant, 
since  the  Church,  according  to  Schenkel' s  view,  has 
never  had  such  a  portrait  of  Jesus.  Never,  I  say ; 
for  even  the  oldest  representations  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  our  Gospels,  are  neither  truly  historical  nor 
genuinely  human :  even  in  them  the  miraculous 
legend  has  the  preponderance.  The  Jewish-Chris- 
tian party  fought  valiantly  against  the  deification 
of  Jesus,  but  in  vain.  They  were  unable  to  prevent 
the  formation  of  the  dogma  of  the  God-man  with 
his  two  natures,  —  one  divine  and  one  human. 
Such  a  twofold  being  is  wholly  unhistorical ;  and 
from  this  standpoint  a  genuinely  human  portrait  of 
Jesus  cannot  be  obtained.  The  reformers  took  this 
catholic  dogma  without  testing  it.  They  did  not 
dare  (from  fear  of  the  results,  Schenkel  thinks)  to 
subject  it  to  a  searching  revision,  —  in  Schenkel's 
eyes  a  grievous  mistake,  which  has  grievously  re- 
venged itself.  Rationalism  first  attempted  to  un- 
derstand the  person  of  Jesus  as  human ;  but  the 
rationalistic  portrait  of  Christ  is  unsatisfactory :  it 
leaves  the  feelings  cold,  the  imagination  empty,  the 
disposition  indifferent.  We  cannot  believe  in  this 
rationalistic  Christ.  Schleiermacher  went  a  step 
farther:  he  drew  such  a  portrait  of  Christ  as  he 


44  THE   VIEWS   eP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

needed  for  his  own  religious  wants.  But  his  Christ 
had  a  great  defect :  he  is  no  Christ  for  the  people ; 
not  the  Christ  "  as  he  went  about  and  taught  and 
labored  among  the  peoj)le,  and  as,  for  the  people,  he 
suffered  and  died."*  The  want  remains  unsatis- 
fied. The  Church  exists  more  than  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  ;  sees  in  this  Christ  her  Head,  her  Lord, 
her  source  of  life  ;  her  religious  services,  her 
doctrine,  her  whole  life,  are  concerned  with  this 
Christ :  but,  strange  to  say,  she  has  not  had  a  truly 
historical,  genuinely  human  portrait  of  her  Lord 
imtil  to-day.  Schenkel  has  tried  to  satisfy  this 
great  want.  Yerily,  if  he  had  succeeded,  we  should 
have  to  date  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  Church 
from  the  day  on  which  his  "  Character  of  Jesus  " 
made  its  appearance  ;  and  Schenkel  would  have 
rendered  the  Church  a  greater  service  than  Luther, 
or  any  of  the  other  great  men  whom  she  venerates 
as  her  human  teachers.  Let  us  not  be  prevented 
by  the  greatness  of  the  claims  he  advances  from 
calmly  examining  them.  Schenkel,  it  is  true,  offers 
his  "  Character  of  Jesus  "  only  as  an  attempt,  how- 
ever surely  convinced  he  may  be  that  it  is  a  success- 
ful attempt. 

One  word  before  we  begin.  There  is  a  difficulty 
in  expressing  one's  self  exactly  about  Schenkel. 
The  position  he  has  taken  towards  the  questions  of 
the  day,  and  the  part  he  has  played  in  the  ecclesias- 
tical controversies  of  late  years,  are  apt  to  make 
judgment  upon  his  book  seem  clouded  by  partisan- 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  8  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  14). 


THE   VIEWS   OF  SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  45 

ship.  I  wish,  therefore,  to  expressly  state,  that  we 
now  have  to  deal,  not  with  Schenkel  the  Church 
politician,  but  with  Schenkel  the  historian.  The 
question  before  us,  which  we  wish  to  consider  with 
perfect  impartiality,  is  this :  whether  his  "  Charac- 
ter of  Jesus  "  is  truly  historical. 

This  requires,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  picture 
be  taken  from  the  authorities.  Truly  historical 
treatment  of  the  authorities  is  the  first  claim  which 
we  have  the  right  to  make  upon  an  historical  repre- 
sentation. Schenkel  especially  prefers  the  Gospel  of 
Mark.  This,  he  thinks,  gives  the  record  that  was 
nearest  to  the  scene  of  the  Saviom-'s  life.  Mark 
composed  it  from  Peter's  oral  discom'ses  between 
45  and  58,  only  about  twenty  years  after  the  Lord's 
death,  and  in  the  very  lifetime  of  Peter.  If  it  is  ad- 
mitted that  these  records  were  made  with  great  accu- 
racy from  Peter's  discourses,  as  Schenkel  expressly 
acknowledges,  then  we  have  in  the  second  Gospel 
an  authority  as  good  as  could  be  desired.  Schenkel, 
to  be  sure,  supposes  that  we  do  not  possess  the  sec- 
ond Gospel  as  it  came  from  the  hand  of  the  author : 
the  original  Mark  has  been  revised,  but  this  revision 
has  not  altered  its  essential  contents.  Schenkel 
lays  Mark  at  the  foundation :  his  "  Character  of 
Jesus"  is  intended  to  be  a  representation  of  the 
life  of  Jesus,  based  upon  the  second  Gospel.  Is  he 
right  in  this  ?  Is  the  view  just  presented  concerning 
Mark  and  its  relation  to  the  other  Gospels  correct  ? 
I  am  the  less  inclined  to  dispute  about  it  with 
Schenkel,  since  the  substance  of  this  view  was  not 


46  THE   YIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

invented  by  him,  but  is  borrowed  from  his  colleague, 
Holtzmann.  Grant  it  all  for  a  moment ;  then  cer- 
tainly Schenkel's  representation  must  agree  sub- 
stantially with  that  of  Mark ;  his  portrait  of  Christ, 
with  the  portrait  which  Mark  gives.  Is  this  the 
fact  ?  You  will  at  once  ve-plj,  No  :  the  Christ  of 
Mark  is  wholly  different  from  that  of  Schenkel. 
Take  a  single  point,  the  miracles, — what  a  differ- 
ence !  Schenkel  asserts  that  in  Mark  the  miraculous 
part  is  less  prominent  than  in  the  other  Gospels, 
and  this  he  adds  to  the  arguments  for  its  greater 
age.  But  this  is  simply  not  true.  Eead  Matthew, 
and  then  read  Mark :  you  will  find  no  difference  in 
this  respect.  In  one,  as  in  the  other,  the  whole 
work  of  the  Lord  is  pervaded  by  miracles,  the  whole 
coloring  of  the  picture  is  supernatural.  How  does 
Schenkel  reconcile  his  position  with  these  facts  ? 

Schenkel  replies  that  the  occurrence  of  miracles 
may  be  explained  by  a  twofold  reason.  In  the  first 
place,  Mark  freely  worked  over  the  discourses  of 
Peter,  and  wrote  his  Gospel  under  the  influence  of 
the  oral  tradition,  and  the  need  of  miracles  felt  by 
the  apostolic  Church ;  and  Peter  himself  may  have 
represented,  according  to  Old-Testament  models, 
many  an  evangelical  incident  in  a  miraculous 
light.  In  the  next  place,  the  reviser  of  the  original 
Gospel  of  Mark  inserted  here  and  there  among 
the  earlier  accounts  the  later  conceptions,  although 
the  special  cases  where  this  was  done  cannot  now 
be  precisely  ascertained.  You  observe,  in  the  first 
place,  that   Schenkel,  after  announcing   only  two 


THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  47 

reasons,  really  gives  three  ;  for,  besides  the  part  of 
Mark  himself  and  of  his  reviser,  a  share  of  the 
guilt  is  imputed,  by  the  way,  in  a  parenthesis,  to 
Peter.  Who  of  the  three  is  the  chief  offender  ? 
This  Schenkel  declines  to  ascertain.  He  contents 
himself  with  having  thrown  suspicion  upon  these 
three  men,  by  the  general  assertion,  that  they  in- 
troduced the  legend  of  miracles  into  the  record.  I 
fear,  however,  that  we  shall  be  neither  willing  nor 
able  to  content  ourselves  with  this  general  asper- 
sion. 

If  the  subject  of  dispute  were  nothing  more 
than  that  here  and  there  a  slight  miraculous  touch 
had  been  added,  now  and  then  a  story  had  been 
embellished  with  miracles,  or  had  been  put  in  a 
miraculous  light,  the  matter  might  drop.  But  this 
is  not  the  case :  the  question  concerns  a  number  of 
the  greatest  miracles,  which  Schenkel  (here  he  is 
helped  by  the  fact  that  he  writes  only  a  Character, 
not  a  Life,  of  Jesus)  passes  over  in  partial  silence. 
There  is  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  the 
stilling  of  the  tempest,  the  raising  of  Jairus's 
daughter  from  the  dead.  The  whole  record  is  satu- 
rated with  miracles ;  the  person  of  Jesus  is  placed 
wholly  in  a  miraculous  light ;  which  of  the  three 
has  done  this  ?  Schenkel  speaks  of  Peter  only  in- 
cidentally :  he  does  not  count  him  with  the  others. 
He  is  really  not  to  be  thought  of;  the  miraculous 
tales  could  not  come  from  him.  Take  a  few  ex- 
amples :  The  Lord  provided  food  for  the  people  in 
the  wilderness,  Schenkel  says,  in  an  entirely  natm^al 


48  THE  VIEWS  OF  SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

way :  did  Peter,  then,  tell  the  story  as  if  Jesus  had 
increased  the  bread  miraculously  ?     The  Lord,  on  a 
certain  occasion,  showed  himself  more  courageous 
than  old  sailors  (another  similar  interpretation  of 
Schenkel's)  :  did  Peter,  then,  make  out  of  this  the 
story  of  the  stilling  of  the  tempest  ?     In  the  house 
of  Jairus,  no  one  was  raised  from  the  dead :  did 
Peter,  then,  tell  that  story?     This  is  impossible. 
We  must  release  Peter :  he  cannot  be  the  guilty  one. 
Nor  is  there  any  better  reason  for   accusing  the 
reviser.     If  he   were   responsible  for   all  that  is 
miraculous,  which  according  to  Schenkel  is  legend, 
he   would   not   only  have    altered   essentially  the 
original  Mark :  he  would  have  created  an  entirely 
new  pictm-e  of  Christ.      But  that  is  not  the  opinion 
of  Schenkel,  or  of  his  pioneer,  Holtzmann :  it  would 
be  an  utterly  untenable  theory.      Schenkel  does  not 
regard  the  reviser  as  the  really  guilty  one.     He 
only  inserted  here  and  there  the  later  conceptions. 
No  one  therefore  remains,  but  Mark  himself.     This 
surely   contradicts   what   Schenkel  has   previously 
told  us,  —  that  Mark  took  down  the  discourses  of 
Peter  with  great  accuracy.     "We  would  nevertheless 
consent  to  the  contradiction,  if  we  only  gained  our 
object.     But,  instead  of  this,  we  find  a  new  riddle. 
Mark  takes  notes  of  Peter's  discourses,  and  makes 
out  of  them   something  wholly   different,  wholly 
new ;  gives  to  the  natural  events  reported  by  Peter 
a  miraculous   character,   creates   an   entirely  new 
picture   of  Christ !      Is  that  conceivable  ?     What 
kind  of  a  man  must  Mark  have  been  to  do  it? 


THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL  AND   STRAUSS.  49 

And,  besides,  this  does  not  happen  long  years  after- 
ward :  it  takes  place  immediately  afterward,  in  the 
very  lifetime  of  Peter.  What  must  Peter  have 
said,  if  he  ever  saw  or  heard  of  this  book?  He 
had  related,  that  the  Lord  fed  the  people  in  a 
natm-al  way ;  and  out  of  this  his  interpreter  makes 
the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes.  He  had  re- 
lated, that  the  Lord  showed  himself  courageous 
during  a  storm  at  sea  ;•  and  here  he  reads  that  the 
Lord  stilled  the  tempest.  He  never  told  about  rais- 
ing any  one  from  the  dead ;  and  yet  here  is  the 
story  in  this  book,  composed  of  his  discourses.  In- 
deed, this  is  more  than  strange :  it  is  inconceivable. 
There  is  no  escape  from  the  difficulty.  Schenkel 
has  made  a  general  statement  of  reasons  for  us,  to 
show  how  the  miraculous  legends  came  into  the 
record ;  but  his  explanation  answers  only  so  long  as 
we  are  content  with  indistinctness.  When  we  try 
to  take  fast  hold  of  any  single  point,  we  grasp  at 
nothing.  As  long  as  Schenkel  is  unable  to  explain 
definitely  how  such  very  unhistorical  things  have 
come  into  this  excellent  historical  authority,  so  long 
must  we  dispute  his  right  to  use  it  as  he  does,  —  now 
to  accept  its  contents  as  historical,  now  to  reject 
them  as  unhistorical.  That  is  uncritical  ambiguity. 
He  is  obliged  either  to  accept  the  miracles  which 
he  doubts,  or  to  reject  as  unreliable  an  authority 
which  relates  such  unhistorical  things  in  an  in- 
explicable way. 

The  matter  looks  still  worse  when  we  examine  it 
in  detail.     Schenkel,  with  a  readiness  which  calls  to 

4 


50  THE    VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

mind  the  most  flom^isliing  times  of  the  old  rational- 
ism, can  explain  many  of  the  miraculous  stories 
as  perfectly  natural.  For  instance,  it  is  recorded 
that  the  Lord  healed  a  leper.  Schenkel  knows  that 
in  this  case  comforting  words  and  a  kind  touch  are 
not  sufficient.  They  have  never  yet  cured  a  bad 
disease  of  the  skin.  He  supposes  that  the  sick 
man  was  already  essentially  cured  when  Jesus  said 
to  him,  "  Be  thou  clean."  Here  we  see  the  regular 
rationalistic  trick  of  explaining,  or  rather  of  in- 
laying, for  the  evangelist  says  nothing  of  the  sort : 
it  is  Schenkel  alone  who  inserts  this,  without  con- 
sidering what  an  equivocal  part  Jesus  is  made  to 
play  in  healing  over  again,  or  in  pretending  to  heal, 
a  person  who  had  been  already  cured  of  his  sick- 
ness. 

This  convenient  trick,  however,  is  not  sufficient 
to  account  for  all  the  miracles.  There  still  remain 
records  of  miracles  which  cannot  be  disposed  of  in 
this  way.  Schenkel,  accordingly,  undertakes  a  divi- 
sion. He  strips  off  all  that  is  miraculous  as  a  later 
addition,  and  leaves,  as  a  truly  historical  kernel,  an 
entirely  natural  event.  In  order  not  to  use  new 
instances  constantly,  I  will  again  take  as  an  exam- 
ple the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes.  Schenkel 
sets  aside  the  story,  that  Jesus  miraculously  fed 
thousands  of  people  with  a  few  loaves  ;  but  he  holds, 
as  truly  historical,  that  Jesus  once  fed  the  people  in 
the  desert.  This  was  done  by  no  miracle,  but  by 
carefully  arranging  that  the  disciples  should  procure 
food.     When  the  food  was  brought,  Jesus  distrib- 


THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  51 

uted  it  among  the  people,  after  making  a  prayer  of 
thanksgiving.  From  the  impression  left  by  this 
event,  in  connection  with  the  Lord's  teaching  con- 
cerning the  spiritual  food,  which  he  himself  com- 
pared with  the  manna  that  sustained  the  people  in 
the  wilderness,  the  exaggerating,  miracle-seeking 
legend  constructed  the  story  of  a  miraculous  provi- 
sion of  bodily  food.  Then  it  is  historical :  it  really 
happened,  that  Jesus  fed  the  people  in  the  wilder- 
ness, since,  after  a  prayer  of  thanksgiving,  he  had 
food  dispensed  to  them  by  his  disciples.  But  how 
does  Schenkel  know  this  ?  From  Mark,  will  be  the 
reply.  Yes ;  but  Mark  says,  clearly  and  distinctly, 
that  the  feeding  was  miraculous.  If  Schenkel  be- 
lieves one  part  of  this  story,  why  does  he  not  believe 
the  other  ?  If  Mark  is  such  an  untrustworthy  wit- 
ness, that  he  relates  a  miracle  when  none  has  oc- 
curred, I  cannot  understand  how  Schenkel  can  treat 
him  as  such  a  trustworthy  witness  as  to  accept,  upon 
his  testimony,  all  the  rest  of  the  story,  to  the  very 
details  of  the  prayer  of  thanksgiving  and  the  dis- 
pensing of  the  food  by  the  disciples.  I  am  aware 
that  an  historian  can  doubt  particulars  and  secondary 
things  in  what  is  told  by  his  authority,  and  still  hold 
the  substance  to  be  well  founded ;  but  here  the  mat- 
ter stands  just  the  other  way.  By  discarding  the 
miracle  of  the  story,  Schenkel  discards  the  substance 
of  it,  —  the  chief  point,  the  very  thing  for  the  sake 
of  which  it  was  told.  Can  you  suppose  that  Peter 
and  the  other  apostles  told  their  congregations  such 
natural  tales,  as  that  the  Lord  once  distributed  bread 


52  THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

in  the  wilderness,  that  he  once  showed  himself  cou- 
rageous on  the  sea,  etc.  ?  Is  it  not  the  miracles  for 
whose  sake  the  stories  are  always  told  ?  It  is  an 
extremely  hazardous  proceeding  to  reject  the  real 
point  of  a  story  as  unhistorical,  and  to  hold  fast 
subordinate  points.  The  chief  matter  drags  with  it 
the  hy-matters  irrecoverably  into  destruction. 

But,  says  Schenkel,  improbable  as  it  is  that  the 
history  is  true  as  it  stands,  it  is  equally  improb- 
able that  all  of  it  has  been  invented.  To  this  I  re- 
ply, in  the  first  place,  Why  not  ?  When  the  chief 
tiling,  the  miracle,  has  once  been  invented,  or  has 
originated  in  a  change  from  a  spiritual  to  a  sensu- 
ous idea,  why  cannot  the  details  be  also  invented  ? 
Is  the  fabricating  legend  so  unproductive  ?  Where 
does  legend  exhibit  any  thing  so  bare  and  cold  and 
colorless  ?  Does  it  not  always  tell  its  tales  with 
life-like  distinctness,  and  with  details  full  of  color  ? 
In  the  next  place,  I  reply :  We  can  just  as  fairly 
reverse  the  matter,  and  say  of  the  miracle  what 
Schenkel  says  of  his  alleged  natural  kernel, — that 
cannot  have  been  invented.  Who  will  then  decide 
what  can  or  cannot  have  been  invented  ?  Schenkel 
says  of  one  thing,  others  say  of  another  thing, — 
That  cannot  have  been  invented.  These  are  merely 
subjective  opinions,  nothing  more.  Schenkel  once 
said  against  Strauss,  "  If  so  much  is  historical  as  he 
admits,  then  still  more  must  be  historical."  Pre- 
cisely the  same  objection  can  be  made  to  Schenkel ; 
or  we  can  reverse  it,  and  say,  as  Strauss  says.  If 
so  much  is  unhistorical  as  Schenkel  admits,  then 


THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL  AND   STRAUSS.  53 

still  more  must  be  unhistorical.  It  is  ambiguity  in 
criticism  to  stop  short  where  Schenkel  does.  It  is 
mere  arbitrariness,  not  scientific  criticism,  to  say, 
So  far  I  believe  Mark ;  so  far  I  do  not  believe  him.  \ 
He  must  either,  with  Strauss,  reject  the  whole  as  / 
unhistorical ;  or,  with  the  Church,  accept  the  whole 
as  historical. 

The  same  arbitrariness  is  repeated  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  other  Gospels.  Thus,  to  take  an  instance 
from  Luke,  Schenkel -explains  the  whole  story  of  the 
infancy  as  fiction;  but  he  retains  the  story  about 
Jesus,  when  a  boy  of  twelve  in  the  temple,  as  hav- 
ing really  happened.  For  both  stories  we  have  the 
same  authority.  What  right,  then,  has  Schenkel  to 
reject  one  story  and  to  retain  the  other  ?  It  will  be 
said,  The  one,  the  story  of  the  infancy,  is  full  of 
miracles ;  the  other,  the  story  of  the  visit  of  Jesus, 
when  a  boy  of  twelve,  to  the  temple,  is  thoroughly 
natural.  I  will  not  speak  of  the  fact,  that  Schenkel 
is  first  obliged  to  extract  the  miracle  from  the  sec- 
ond story  by  the  arts  of  natural  explanation :  I  will 
grant  that  at  once.  But  I  ask.  Is  it  criticism  to 
reject  the  first  story,  and  to  accept  the  second  upon 
such  ground  ?  Is  it  not  dogmatic  presumption  ?  ^ 
According  to  Schenkel' s  dogmatic  presumption,  there 
can  be  no  miracle,  consequently  the  birth  of  Jesus 
cannot  have  taken  place  as  Luke  relates  it,  therefore 
the  story  is  not  authentic.  On  the  other  hand,  what 
is  related  of  Jesus,  when  a  boy  of  twelve,  can  have 
happened  ;  therefore  it  is  authentic.  Here  we  see 
the  treatment  of  the  authorities,  as  it  lies  at  the 


54        THE   VIEWS  OF  SCHENKEL  AND  STRAUSS. 

foundation  of  Schenkel's  representation.  What 
agrees  with  his  dogmatic  presumptions ;  what  fits 
into  the  image  of  Christ  that  he  has  made  for  him- 
self; what,  in  his  oi)inion,  cannot  have  been  in- 
vented ;  what,  in  his  view,  bears  the  stamp  of 
authenticity,  —  that  is  historical :  all  else  is  not. 

This  proceeding  reaches  its  climax  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  fom"th  Gospel.  According  to  Schenkel, 
this  cannot  have  been  written  by  John.  It  contra- 
dicts the  other  Gospels  in  many  places ;  it  contains 
many  historical  and  geographical  errors,  and  there- 
fore cannot  have  been  written  by  an  inhabitant  of 
Palestine.  The  discourses  of  Jesus  contained  in  it 
are  profound,  but  obscure  and  enigmatical,  not  pop- 
ular :  the  historical  Jesus  cannot  have  discoursed  as 
the  fourth  Gospel  represents.  The  fourth  Gospel, 
from  beginning  to  end,  abandons  the  ground  of 
history,  and  places  itself  upon  a  speculative  stand- 
point. The  history,  regarded  from  this  standpoint, 
has  experienced  all  kinds  of  transformations,  which 
have  not  been  able  to  escape  the  acuteness  of  Schen- 
kel. Thus  the  fourth  Gospel  says.  The  mother  of 
Jesus  stood  under  the  cross,  and  from  the  cross  the 
Lord  spoke  to  her  the  familiar  words.  Schenkel,  on 
the  contrary,  asserts.  The  mother  could  not  endure 
the  sight  of  her  crucified  son ;  and  that  story  arose 
(was  invented  accordingly)  from  the  desire  to  have, 
in  the  mother's  constancy  at  the  cross,  an  expiation 
for  her  former  indifference  to  the  gospel.  And 
since  the  evangelist,  in  the  story  about  the  first  mir- 
acle at  the  wedding  in  Cana,  had  recorded  a  harsh 


THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  55 

word  spoken  by  Jesus  to  his  mother,  he  would  gladly 
end  his  life  with  a  word  of  kindness.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  words  by  which  the  Lord  commends  his 
spirit  into  the  Father's  hands,  are  omitted  by  the 
author  of  the  fourth  Gospel,  because  they  do  not 
agree  with  his  idea  of  Jesus.  If  Jesus,  according  to 
the  introduction  of  the  Gospel,  is  the  Word  become 
flesh,  of  equal  birth  with  God,  he  cannot  thus  com- 
mend his  spirit  into  the  hands  of  the  Father. 

"We  should  suppose  that  such  a  transformation 
of  the  history,  made  from  a  speculative  standpoint 
in  the  second  century  (110-120,  Schenkel  thinks), 
could  not  serve  as  an  authority,  and  that  Schenkel 
would  have  to  leave  the  fourth  Gospel  out  of  sight 
in  portraying  his  character.  Far  from  it :  on  the 
contrary,  without  the  fourth  Gospel,  the  portrait  of 
the  Lord  would  lack  "  the  unfathomable  depth,  the 
inaccessible  height."  *  Jesus  was  not  in  reality, 
but  in  truth,  such  as  the  fourth  Gospel  describes 
him.  Although  it  was  not  written  by  John,  there 
lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  fourth  Gospel  accounts 
which  come  from  John ;  and  these  Schenkel,  of 
course,  is  able  to  find  out,  in  spite  of  the  transfor- 
mation which  this  history  has  experienced  from  a 
speculative  standpoint.  As  you  please,  therefore, 
it  is  both  genuine  and  not  genuine,  Johannine  and 
not  Johannine,  true  and  not  true.  Schenkel  gains 
thereby  the  ability  to  use  it  as  he  pleases,  to  take 
what  fits  into  his  image  of  Christ,  and  to  leave  out 
what  does  not  fit. 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  25  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  46). 


56  THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL  AND  STRAUSS. 

Look  at  a  few  examples  of  this  kind.  The  con- 
versation of  Jesus  with  the  Samaritan  woman  cer- 
tainly cannot  have  taken  place  as  John  relates  it. 
Time  and  place  are  wrongly  given ;  it  describes 
Jesus  as  omniscient  when  he  was  not ;  it  alludes  to 
the  relations  of  the  Jews  to  the  Samaritans,  in  such 
a  way  as  to  betray  in  the  author  an  ignorance  of 
their  actual  relations,  inconceivable  in  a  born  Jew  ; 
the  words  of  Jesus  concerning  the  worship  of  God 
represent  him  in  a  wholly  incorrect  position  towards 
the  Old-Testament  law.  In  spite  of  all  this,  we 
soon  hear,  to  our  great  amazement,  that  in  its  main 
substance  the  story  is  not  invented,  but  bears  the 
seal  of  trustworthiness.  The  riddle  is  easily  solved. 
That  "  loftiest  plea  for  toleration,"  *  which  is  found 
in  this  conversation,  the  "largeness  of  heart," f  in 
the  declaration  of  the  character  of  the  true  worship 
of  God,  —  could  not  be  left  out  of  Schenkel's  por- 
trait of  Christ.  Here  therefore,  in  the  midst  of  all 
that  is  .unhistorical^  is  found  a  bit  of  history.  In 
his  enthusiasm  over  this  largeness  of  heart,  Schen- 
kel  forgets,  that,  a  hundred  and  odd  pages  before,  he 
adduced  this  same  saying  concerning  the  worship 
of  God  as  a  proof  that  the  fourth  Gospel  puts  Jesus 
in  a  position  towards  the  law  which  differs  entirely 
from  the  representation  of  the  other  three  Gospels, 
and  is  therefore  false.  The  same  course  is  pursued 
towards  the  record'  of  the  washing  of  the  disciples' 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  125  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  82,  83). 
t  "  Grossartigen  Weitherzigkeit."     Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  125   (Fur- 
ness's Trans.,  vol.  ii.  p.  83). 


THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL    AND   STRAUSS.  57 

feet.  "We  learn  that  the  fourth  Gospel  has  arranged 
the  events  of  the  last  evening  from  a  speculative 
point  of  view.  On  that  evening  certainly,  the  wash- 
ing of  the  disciples'  feet  cannot  have  taken  place. 
Then  perhaps  the  author  invented  it  from  his  spec- 
ulative point  of  view  ?  Not  at  all :  the  washing  of 
the  disciples'  feet  serves  so  excellently  to  humhle 
all  priestly  pride,  it  is  such  an  indispensable  feature 
in  Schenkel's  portrait,  that  here  again,  in  spite  of 
every  thing,  truly  historical  recollection  must  be 
recognized.  The  same  treatment  of  the  authorities 
prevails  throughout.  What  suits  Schenkel's  por- 
trait is  genuine ;  what  does  not  suit  it  is  not  genu- 
ine. 

We  are  then  led  to  the  unexpected  result,  that,  in 
several  instances  where  the  first  three  Gospels  are 
in  error,  the  correct  account  is  found  in  the  fourth 
Gospel ;  that  even  Mark,  at  other  times  so  much 
preferred,  must  consent  to  be  corrected  by  this  Gos- 
pel treatise  of  the  second  century.  The  discourse 
in  the  sixth  chapter  of  John  furnishes  us  with  an 
historical  sign,  that  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and 
fishes,  as  related  in  the  first  three  Gospels,  did  not 
take  place.  Comparing  the  Lord's  discom'ses,  as 
given  by  the  first  three  evangelists,  concerning  the 
last  things,  with  the  final  discourses  of  Jesus  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  chapters  of  John's  Gospel, 
Schenkel  gives  John  the  preference.  He,  and  not 
the  other  evangelists,  has  repeated  the  true  substance 
of  the  Lord's  discourses  concerning  the  last  things. 
All  this  in  spite  of  the  fact,  that  Jesus,  according 


58  THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL  AND  STRAUSS. 

to  Sclienkel,  cannot  have  made  such  long  speeches 
during  the  last  evening ;  in  spite  of  the  fact,  that 
these  discourses  serve  at  other  times  as  proof  that 
this  Gospel  is  not  genuine.  His  decision  in  these 
instances  also  rests  upon  merely  subjective  ground. 
Schenkel  needs  the  discourse  in  the  sixth  chapter 
of  John,  about  the  bread  of  heaven,  to  explain  the 
rise  of  the  legend  of  the  loaves  and  fishes ;  and  he 
does  not  like  the  realism  of  the  Lord's  discourses 
about  the  last  things  in  the  first  evangelists,  so  well 
as  the  supposed  spiritualistic  idea  of  John. 

This  may  suffice.  And  I  may  add,  as  the  result 
of  our  examination,  that  Schenkel's  treatment  of 
the  authorities  is  thoroughly  uncritical  and  unhis- 
torical,  full  of  ambiguity,  conformed  to  dogmatic 
presumptions  and  subjective  arbitrariness.  What 
would  be  said  if  any  one  were  to  treat  in  this  way 
the  authorities  for  the  history  of  Luther  or  of  Fred- 
eric II.  ? 

If  we  now  pass  on  to  consider  what  it  is  that 
Schenkel  gets  in  this  way,  it  is  clear  that  the  gist 
of  his  whole  representation  is  the  development  of 
the  Messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus.  Jesus  was 
not  conscious  of  being  the  Messiah  at  his  first  ap- 
pearance, but  came  gradually  to  this  consciousness 
under  the  opposition  of  the  high-church  party. 
According  to  the  Gospels,  to  be  sure,  this  is  not 
true.  Schenkel  must  reject  direct  testimony  upon 
this  point,  —  even  that  of  his  highly  respected  Mark, 
according  to  which  Jesus  came  forth  fully  conscious 
of  being  the  Messiah.     Let  us  overlook  this,  how- 


THE  VIEWS  OF  SCHENKEL  AND  STRAUSS.  59 

ever,  and  ask  whether  this  representation  is  possibly 
historical.  Not  as  Messiah  did  Jesus  appear,  but 
as  deliverer,  as  saviour  of  his  people,  as  founder  of  a 
new  religious  communion ;  or  he  foreboded  at  least 
that  the  revival  of  the  nation's  life  should  proceed 
from  him.  But  according  to  the  prophets,  accord- 
ing to  the  hopes  then  living  in  the  Jewish  people, 
the  Messiah  should  be  all  these  things.  Could 
Jesus  think  that  he  was  called  to  revive  his  people  ; 
could  he  believe  himself  to  be  the  saviour,  the  deli- 
verer of  the  people,  the  founder  of  a  new  religious 
communion, — without  at  once  recognizing  himself 
as  the  Messiah?  This  seems  utterly  impossible. 
Schenkel  himself  could  not  avoid  this  dilB&culty. 
He  thinks,  however,  that  he  can  solve  it  by  repre- 
senting the  Messianic  hope,  not  merely  as  it  then 
lived  in  the  people,  but  also  as  it  was  originally  in 
the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament ;  as  one  which 
aimed  only  at  external  dominion,  at  the  spread  of 
the  theocracy  over  the  whole  earth.  For  this  reason, 
he  thinks,  Jesus  could  not  believe  himself  to  be  the 
Messiah ;  he  was  obliged  rather  to  oppose  most  de- 
cidedly these  Messianic  hopes.  Let  it  be  granted 
for  a  moment,  —  what  I  do  not  otherwise  admit,  — 
that  these  hopes  were  solely  national  and  theocratic : 
this  did  not  prevent  Jesus  afterwards,  in  Schenkel's 
opinion,  from  declaring  himself  to  be  the  Messiah ; 
why  then  should  it  have  prevented  him  in  the  be- 
ginning ?  He  could  have  applied  the  pure  meaning 
of  these  promises  to  himself  at  first,  as  well  as  at 
last,  when  Schenkel  provides  for  it.     And  even  if  it 


60  THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

is  admitted  that  he  could  not  have  done  it,  because 
of  reasons  that  are  not  made  clear  to  us,  no  one 
can  deny  that  Jesus  had  to  accommodate  himself 
to  these  hopes ;  and  at  the  beginning  too,  unless  we 
assume  that  he  came  forth  without  knowing  what 
he  wanted.  That  was  unavoidable.  If  he  could  not 
have  believed  himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  he  would 
necessarily  have  been  sure  that  he  was  not  the 
Messiah  ;  and  we  should  thus  reach  the  conclusion, 
which  even  Schenkel  would  like  to  evade,  —  namely, 
that  Jesus  confessed  at  first  that  he  was  not  the 
Messiah,  but  was  afterwards  forced  to  the  directly 
opposite  confession.  This  is  perplexing;  but  it  is 
not  so  perplexing  as  the  description  of  the  way  in 
which  opposition  to  the  hierarchy,  and  to  the  nature 
of  the  law,  gradually  led  the  Lord  to  a  clear  con- 
sciousness of  his  call  to  be  the  Messiah.  Since  Jesus, 
at  the  time  of  his  baptism,  was  convinced  "  that  the 
theocracy  was  no  longer  equal  to  the  work  of  re- 
generating the  Israelitish  people ; "  *  since,  in  the 
solitude  of  the  wilderness,  he  could  think  of  no  way 
"  but  to  break  entirely  with  the  theocracy ;  to  arm 
himself  for  a  life-and-death  struggle,"  f  —  we  should 
suppose  that  all  was  decided ;  and  we  are  at  a  loss 
when  it  is  afterwards  asserted,  as  if  for  the  first 
time,  that  "the  rupture  was  unavoidable." J  If 
Jesus,  at  the  commencement  of  his  work,  abandoned 
all  respect  for  the  theocracy,  and  permitted  the  dis- 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  35  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  74). 
t  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  40  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  90). 
t  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  62  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  140). 


THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  61 

ciples  intentionally  to  break  the  Sabbath,  Schenkel 
is  right  in  saying  "  the  opposing  forces  on  both  sides 
had  reached  their  acme  ; "  *  but  it  is  hard  to  find  out 
where  a  further  development  was  to  come  from.  If 
Jesus,  in  the  initiatory  discourse  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  had  "  solemnly  withdrawn  himself  from 
all  living  connection  with  the  Jewish  hierarchy  and 
theology,"!  what  is  meant  by  saying  that  after- 
wards, for  the  first  time,  "  he  changed  to  an  attitude 
of  open  and  vehement  attack  ? "  J  I  am  still  less  able 
to  understand  how  all  this  can  have  served  to  clear 
his  Messianic  consciousness. 

In  one  word,  the  whole  development  is  mere 
show.  There  is  no  real  development  there.  This 
will  be  still  more  evident  if  we  compare  Schenkel 
with  Renan.  In  Renan  we  have  a  real  develop- 
ment at  the  cost  of  inti'oducing  the  factor  of  sin 
into  the  life  of  Jesus.  Jesus  sins,  and  is  ruined. 
Schenkel  shrinks  from  saying  this.  His  Jesus  must 
not  sin,  must  not  incur  guilt ;  but  he  is  nevertheless 
supposed  to  have  developed  just  as  other  great  men 
have  done.  This  is  a  mere  show  of  development. 
It  must  not  be  overlooked,  that  the  comparison  in 
one  respect  results  in  Schenkel's  favor.  It  must  be 
acknowledged,  —  and  I  wish  distinctly  to  declare  it, 
— that  in  him  there  is  none  of  Renan' s  frivolity.  He 
is  evidently  concerned  to  represent  Jesus  as  morally 
pure,  —  yes,  as  sinless.     But  it  is  equally  clear  that 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  65  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  145). 
t  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  74  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  1.  p.  164). 
}  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  179  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  ii.  p.  195). 


62  THE   VIEWS   OF    SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

he  does  not  succeed  in  this.  He  feels  that,  in  an  en- 
tirely sinless  Jesus,  the  kind  of  development  which 
he  wishes  to  represent  is  impossible :  therefore  he 
discourses  about  great  inner  struggles  and  storms, 
which  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  experienced,  about 
great  temptations  which  he  had  to  overcome.  He 
thus  puts  the  sinlessness  in  doubt;  for  where  in- 
ner storms  and  temptations  are,  there  is  sin.  This 
also  is  mere  ambiguity.  Sin  is  not  kept  entirely 
away  from  the  Christ  of  Schenkel,  but  just  far 
enough  away  to  prevent  it  from  attaining  such  a 
development  in  him  as  in  the  Christ  of  Kenan. 
Schenkel's  Clirist  wavers  unsteadily  between  the 
sinful  Christ  of  Renan  and  the  sinless  Christ  of 
the  Church. 

Schenkel  has  tried  to  make  up  for  the  lack  of 
inner  life  in  his  development,  by  the  coloring  of  his 
representation.  Jesus  is  the  man  of  the  people, — 
who  took  an  interest  in  the  poor,  oppressed  people, 
who  went  about  and  taught  and  labored  among 
the  people,  and  for  the  people  suffered  and  died. 
The  men  of  the  people  are  to  him  "  the  men  of  the 
Christian  future."*  His  enemies  are  the  "high- 
church  party,"  "the  theologues,"  —  the  stubborn 
bigots,  the  priesthood.  His  task  is  to  do  away 
with  the  law  (again  and  again  is  this  word  re- 
peated throughout  the  book),  the  artificial,  empty, 
dead,  creed-bound  churchdom.  His  religion  is  that 
of  humanity,  —  "the  religion  of  the  love  of  man, 
cleansed  from  the  prejudices  of  religion  and  place, 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  60  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  136). 


THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  63 

from  all  prepossessions,  official  and  national,"  *  the 
way  of  eternal  life.  The  religious  communion  of  the 
New  Testament  is  to  be  founded,  not  upon  offxial 
authority  and  scholasticism,  not  upon  theology  and 
clergy,  not  upon  privileged  orders,  but  upon  the 
love  of  the  people.  Jesus  thus  proclaims  the  re- 
ligion free  from  every  ceremonial  statute,  proclaims 
the  freedom  of  worship,  proclaims  human  worth 
and  human  rights,  proclaims  the  socialistic  prin- 
ciple. By  not  excluding  Judas  from  the  last  supper, 
he  showed  that  all  Church  discipline  is  useless  ;  he 
has  not  tied  the  communion  to  a  definite  prepara- 
tion, or  to  a  definite  creed,  but  has  granted  to  every 
one  absolute  freedom  to  partake  of  it.  You  per- 
ceive the  Jesus  of  Schenkel  expresses  himself  very 
decidedly  about  the  questions  of  to-day :  he  is  the 
genuine  demagogue  of  the  present,  who,  with  his 
struggle  against  the  law  and  against  feudal  pre- 
judices, might  come  out  with  applause  everywhere 
in  behalf  of  free  religion  and  the  socialistic  prin- 
ciple. But  that  is  not  the  historical  Jesus,  the 
Jesus  of  the  Gospels,  the  Jesus  of  Peter  and  Paul. 
He  proclaimed  neither  free  religion  nor  human 
rights :  he  did  not  proclaim  any  thing ;  for  he  did 
"  not  cry,  nor  lift  up,  nor  cause  his  voice  to  be  heard 
in  the  street."!  It  is  true  that  he  did  not  court  the 
favor  of  the  privileged  classes ;  but  it  is  also  true 
that  he  did  not,  like  Schenkel's  Jesus,  flatter  the  peo- 
ple without  teaching  them  that  every  thing  must  be 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  127  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  ii.  p.  86). 
t  Isaiah  xlii.  2  (Matthew  xii.  19). 


64         THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

built  up  from  below,  from  the  good- will  and  pure  dis- 
position of  the  people.  This  portrait  of  Christ  is 
really  as  unhistorical  as  Kenan's.  While  Kenan's 
"  Life  of  Jesus  "  is  a  romance,  Schenkel's  "  Charac- 
ter of  Jesus"  is  a  party-pamphlet,  in  which  the 
enemies  of  the  Lord  are  so  drawn,  that  they  look 
precisely  like  Schenkel's  enemies, — that  is,  as  he 
represents  them  to  himself, — and  in  which  words  are 
put  into  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  which  plainly  show  that 
he  is  fighting  directly  for  Schenkel  and  his  party. 

There  is  at  present  a  kind  of  historical  writing, 
which  is  fond  of  borrowing  the  colors  for  its  pictures 
directly  from  the  present  time.  The  constitutional 
contests  of  the  Eoman  republic  are  related  as  if 
writers  were  telling  about  the  constitutional  contests 
of  yesterday.  It  may  seem  as  if  in  this  way  history 
might  be  brought  home  to  us,  and  made  fruitful  for 
the  present.  I  am  not  of  that  opinion.  This  kind 
of  historical  composition  lacks  the  chief  thing, 
without  which  the  history  of  the  past  cannot  be  the 
teacher  of  the  present:  it  lacks  the  truth.  Most 
decidedly  must  it  be  rejected,  when  the  sacred  his- 
tory is  so  treated.  If  anybody  wishes  to  write  a 
party-pamphlet,  let  him  write  one ;  but  he  desecrates 
what  is  most  holy  when  he  misuses  the  life  of 
Jesus  in  the  service  of  party-warfare,  in  order  to 
make  a  party-pamphlet  out  of  that. 

Such  are  the  facts  concerning  one  of  the  two 
predicates  which  Schenkel  claims  for  his  "  Char- 
acter of  Jesus ;  "  namely,  "  truly  historical."  Let 
us  now  see  what  the  other  is  worth ;  namely,  "gen- 


THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  65 

uinely  human."  It  must  first  be  asked  what 
Schenkel  means  by  this.  "  Genuinely  human " 
the  Church  also  believes  her  Christ  to  be ;  she  has 
at  all  times  laid  as  much  stress  upon  this,  that 
Christ  is  truly  man,  as  upon  the  fact  that  he  is  truly 
God.  But  this  doctrine  of  the  two  natures  in 
Christ  asserts  what  is  utterly  impossible,  according 
to  Schenkel.  Such  a  twofold  being,  God  and  man 
in  one,  is  inconceivable.  If  he  is  truly  God,  he 
cannot  be  truly  man.  It  is  plain  that  with  Schenkel 
genuinely  human  means  only  human.  With  this 
idea  he  proceeds  to  describe  Christ  for  us  as  a  mere 
man.  But  although  a  mere  man,  wholly  within 
the  bounds  of  human  nature,  as  Schenkel  likes  to 
express  it,  Jesus  is  nevertheless  said  to  be  the 
archetype  of  humanity,  the  light  of  the  world,  the 
only  one  who  has  revealed  the  ideal  of  godly  life 
as  perfectly  as  is  possible  within  the  bounds  of 
human  nature.  Schenkel  does  not  even  hesitate 
to  call  him  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  and 
speaks  of  his  divinity,  which,  to  be  sure,  is  said  to 
be  not  an  essential  equality  with  God,  but  a  moral 
oneness,  a  perfectly  sinless  agreement  of  his  will 
with  the  will  of  the  Father. 

The  question  arises  whether  these  two  assertions 
are  consistent  with  each  other,  —  a  mere  man,  and 
sinless.  If  Jesus  was  only  a  man,  it  is  inexplicable 
how  he,  and  he  alone  of  all  men,  should  be  perfectly 
sinless.  His  life  was  wholly  within  the  bounds  of 
human  nature ;  and  yet  is  he  said  to  be  the  single 
Example,  the  archetype,  the  light  of  the  world  ?    If 

5 


66         THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

he  is  only  a  man,  lie  cannot  be  the  single  Example, 
the  ideal  that  shall  rule  for  ever.  He  may  he  a 
remarkable  personage,  to  whom  our  race  is  much 
indebted :  but  he  is  one  among  others,  there  are 
others  by  his  side ;  and  if  they  are  inferior  to  him 
in  some  respects,  in  other  respects  they  surpass  him. 
Thus,  brought  within  the  course  of  the  develop- 
ment of  our  race,  he  may  always  mark  one  of  its 
greatest  eras,  but  not  the  absolute  acme  of  human 
greatness.  There  can  be  no  such  person.  We 
stand  upon  the  ground  of  relativity ;  and  it  is  a 
contradiction  to  say  of  any  one,  that  he  is  only  a 
man,  and  yet  the  single  Example  for  all  time,  the 
light  of  the  world.  If  Schenkel  is  decided  that 
there  is  nothing  supernatural  in  Jesus,  nothing  but 
a  human  nature,  no  capacity  in  him  which  does  not 
belong  to  human  nature  in  general,  then  he  must 
cease  to  call  him  the  single  Example,  the  archetype, 
the  light  of  the  world.  If  he  still  does  it,  then 
either  these  high  predicates  are  not  seriously  meant, 
or  his  portrait  has  no  claim,  according  to  his  own 
premises,  to  be  "  genuinely  human." 

Let  us,  I  pray  you,  look  these  things  straight  in 
the  face.  All  equivocation  must  vanish  here  where 
the  really  decisive  point  is  at  stake,  —  the  heart  and 
centre  of  our  faith.  Schenkel  says  that  we  cannot 
have  faith  in  the  rationalistic  Christ.  He  wishes, 
then,  for  a  Christ  in  whom  we  can  have  faith ;  and 
his  Christ  is  doubtless  meant  to  be  such  a  one.  Let 
us  see.  We  can  have  faith  only  in  God.  That  is  a 
simple  but  fundamental  proposition ;  without  holding 


THE  VIEWS   OF  SCHENKEL  AND   STRAUSS.  67 

it  fast,  Christianity  ceases  to  be  monotlieistic,  sinks 
below  Mohammedanism,  down  to  the  grade  of  hea- 
thenism. It  is  also  a  proposition  which  the  old 
rationalism  maintained  in  its  day  without  equivoca- 
tion, and  with  a  moral  energy  which  might  well  be 
imitated  at  the  present  time.  We  are  now  obliged 
to  confront  the  following  alternative:  Either  the 
Christ  of  Schenkel  is  a  mere  man  like  other  men, 
remarkable,  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  all, 
but  only  within  the  bounds  of  human  nature,  —  and 
hence  we  dare  not  have  faith  in  him ;  hence  the 
want  is  not  satisfied,  the  want  which  Schenkel  him- 
self feels,  of  a  Christ  in  whom  we  can  have  faith : 
or  we  can  have  faith  in  him,  —  and  hence  he  is  not 
a  mere  man;  and  the  task  which  Schenkel  has 
undertaken  of  giving  us  a  "  genuinely  human " 
Christ,  is  not  performed. 

No  one  has  exposed  the  contradictions  in  which 
Schenkel  has  entangled  himself  more  acutely  than 
Strauss.  With  a  consistency  which  leaves  nothing 
to  be  desired,  he  has  laid  bare  the  ambiguity  of 
Schenkel's  position.  In  his  view,  Schenkel's  sinless 
Christ  is  as  great  a  miracle  as  the  Church's  Son  of 
God,  born  of  a  virgin  ;  and  still  more  inconceivable, 
since  the  Church  acts  in  general  on  the  ground  of 
the  supernatural  and  miraculous,  while  Schenkel  re- 
jects this,  and  yet  admits  the  miracle  of  a  sinless 
Christ.  He  shows,  with  acute  severity,  the  incon- 
sistency of  Schenkel's  propositions.  If  the  perfec- 
tion of  Christ  is  only  such  as  is  possible  within  the 
bounds  of  human  nature,  then  such  perfection  must 


68  THE   VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

be  possible  for  all  who  share  in  human  nature ;  and, 
as  always  hajDpens  with  other  perfections  of  which 
human  nature  is  capable,  must,  in  some  instances  at 
least,  have  come  to  pass.  The  Church  says  absolute 
perfection  is  only  possible  for  Christ,  and  therefore 
came  to  pass  only  in  him  ;  and  this  is  clearly  correct 
logic.  Schenkel  says  relative  perfection  is  possible 
for  all  men,  but  came  to  pass  only  in  Christ, — 
which  is  as  absurd  as  it  would  be  to  say,  that  per- 
fection was  only  possible  for  Christ,  but  came  to 
pass  in  other  men. 

There  is  no  such  ambiguity  in  Strauss.  With 
him  there  is  perfect  consistency,  which  shrinks 
from  no  result;  perfect  candor,  which  scorns  to 
conceal  its  aim.  Strauss,  without  any  reserve, 
proposes  to  destroy  the  illusion  of  miracles.  The 
irrefragable  part  of  Christianity  is,  that  it  has 
raised  mankind  above  the  sensuous  religion  of  the 
Greeks,  and  above  the  legal  religion  of  the  Jews ; 
but  the  faith  that  a  spiritual,  moral  power  rules 
the  world,  and  the  knowledge  that  the  service  of 
this  power  must  be  sj)iritual  and  moral,  —  all  this, 
says  Strauss,  has  not  really  amounted  to  any  thing  in 
Christianity  up  to  this  time.  Even  Protestantism 
still  depends  upon  a  number  of  external  perform- 
ances, which  are  no  better  than  Jewish  ceremonies. 
The  cause  of  this  is  the  illusion  of  miracles.  As 
long  as  Christianity  is  regarded  as  something  out- 
wardly given,  Christ  as  one  who  has  come  from 
heaven,  the  Church  as  an  institution  for  expiation 
through   his   blood,  —  so  long  is   the  religion  of 


THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL  AND   STRAUSS.  69 

the  Spirit  itself  unspiritual ;  Christianity  is  a  Jew- 
ish idea.  The  task  of  the  present  day  is  to  de- 
stroy this  illusion  of  miracles.  This  is  also  the 
only  means  of  success  for  the  agitation  in  behalf  of 
a  freer  Church  constitution,  which  Strauss  looks 
down  upon  rather  contemptuously.  "  He  who  would 
banish  priests  from  the  Church  must  first  banish 
miracles  from  religion."* 

Strauss  is  perfectly  serious  in  this  intention.  No 
trace  of  accommodation  can  be  found  in  him.  Jesus 
is  a  man  like  other  men;  a  remarkable  person,  who 
has  rendered  great  service  to  mankind,  by  first  ex- 
pressing the  ideas  of  the  religion  of  the  Spirit: 
but  he  is  not  the  single  Example,  —  the  archetype. 
Strauss  thinks  that  to  say,  as  Schenkel  says,  Jesus 
is  the  light  of  the  world,  is  dishonest  flattery.  Sin- 
lessness,  perfection,  of  course,  cannot  be  attributed 
to  him:  that  belongs  to  the  supernatural  illusion 
about  Jesus.  He  had  great  gifts,  but  he  also  had 
his  failings ;  he  occupies  an  important  place  in  his- 
tory, but  he  had  his  predecessors,  and  he  will  have 
successors. 

Strauss  is  equally  consistent  in  his  treatment 
of  the  authorities.  He  does  not  use  the  Gospel  of 
John  at  one  time  as  an  unhistorical  book,  and  at 
another  as  a  good  historical  authority ;  he  does  not 
accept  one  story  and  reject  the  rest,  nor  separate 
in  the  same  story  an  historical  kernel  from  a  legend- 
ary hull.    Strauss  is  not  given  to  such  tricks.     The 

*  Strauss's  Leben  Jesu  (gearbeitet),  S.  xix.  (Authorized  Trans.,  vol.  i. 
p.  xvi.). 


70  THE   VIEWS   OF  SCHENKEL  AND  STRAUSS. 

Gospel  wMch  lie  judges  to  be  the  earliest  of  all  — 
the  Gospel  of  Matthew  —  is  merely  a  cloudy  me- 
dium, obscured  by  the  lapse  of  time,  and  by  all 
sorts  of  intervening  events.  At  the  early  day  of 
its  composition,  much  may  have  been  already  lost ; 
many  a  significant  word,  many  an  act,  of  Jesus 
may  have  been  forgotten.  Much  also  may  have 
been  added ;  words  which  he  did  not  speak,  deeds 
which  he  did  not  do,  events  which  did  not  take 
place. 

The  authorities,  therefore,  do  not  furnish  mat^ 
rials  for  a  sure,  life-like  picture  of  Jesus.  '.'  Peo- 
ple do  not  like  to  hear  it,"  —  thus  Strauss  concludes 
his  investigations,  — "  and  therefore  they  do  not 
believe  it ;  but  whoever  has  thoroughly  studied  the 
subject,  and  is  candid,  knows  as  well  as  we  do,  that 
history  gives  us  concerning  few  great  men  such 
unsatisfactory  information  as  concerning  Jesus."* 
The  figure  of  Socrates,  for  instance,  fom-  hundred 
years  older,  is  incomparably  more  distinct.  What 
Strauss  gives  as  the  life  of  Jesus  is  therefore  ex- 
tremely barren.  He  knows  nothing  certainly  about 
him,  except  that  he  was  born,  that  he  taught,  and 
that  he  died.  What  he  taught  can  seldom  be  deter- 
mined with  certainty.  The  case  is  not  so  bad  as  has 
been  asserted,  —  that  it  is  impossible  to  learn  that 
any  one  of  the  sayings  attributed  by  the  Gospels  to 
Jesus  were  said  by  him.     There  are  some  which  we 

*  Strauss's  Leben  Jesu  (gearbeitet),  S.  621.  [This  passage  begins  the 
second  paragraph  of  the  Conclusion  of  Strauss's  work,  and  may  probably 
be  found  at  the  end  of  vol.  ii.  of  the  Authorized  Trans.  —  The  translator 
has  been  unable  to  get  that  volume.] 


THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL  AND   STRAUSS.  71 

may,  in  all  probability,  ascribe  to  Jesus ;  but  this 
probability,  approaching  nearly  to  certainty,  does 
not  extend  very  far,  and  the  case  looks  much  worse 
for  the  acts  and  general  occurrences  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  excepting  his  journey  to  Jerusalem.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  go  into  details.  I  could  say  little 
more  than  what  has  just  been  said.  We  must  dis- 
pense entirely  with  details  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 
For  instance,  from  the  account  of  the  youth  of  Jesus, 
we  know  certainly  only  that  he  was  born  in  Naza- 
reth, that  his  father  was  probably  a  carpenter  ;  and 
we  may  also  suppose,  that,  in  the  names  of  his 
parents  Joseph  and  Mary,  there  is  a  remnant  of 
historical  fact.  The  later  periods  of  his  life  are 
furnished  with  like  scantiness.  Such  events  even 
as  the  solemn  entry  of  Jesus  into  Jerusalem  receive 
no  quarter  from  Strauss's  criticism.  We  are  left 
again  wholly  in  the  dark. 

We  must  in  the  first  place  acknowledge  the  candor 
of  Strauss.  He  disdained  to  put  into  the  empty  place 
an  image  of  his  own  make,  a  Christ  of  romance 
like  Kenan's,  or  a  partisan  Christ  like  Schen- 
kel's.  He  simply  left  the  place  empty.  We  must 
content  ourselves  with  not  knowing  who  Christ  was. 
One  is  involuntarily  reminded  of  the  saying  of  the 
man  who  was  born  blind  (John  ix.  30),  "  Wliy, 
herein  is  a  marvellous  thing,  that  ye  know  not  from 
whence  he  is,  and  yet  he  hath  opened  mine  eyes." 
A  marvellous  thing  indeed  !  From  this  Jesus  pro- 
ceeds a  movement  which  revolutionizes  the  world ; 
and  we  know  less  about  his  life  than  we  know  about 


72         THE    VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

the  life  of  Socrates,  who  also  exerted  an  influence, 
to  be  sure,  but  in  a  comparatively  temporary  and 
narrow  circle.  If  such  a  deep  movement  really  pro- 
ceeded from  Jesus,  he  must  have  made  an  impres- 
sion upon  his  disciples,  and  must  have  left  this 
impression,  the  likeness  of  himself,  in  their  mem- 
ory. Can  it  be  said,  that,  scarcely  half  a  century 
afterwards,  all  traces  of  this  portrait  were  lost, 
and  an  entirely  different,  essentially  false  one  had 
taken  its  place  ?  A  still  more  wonderful  thing 
remains.  This  Jesus  preaches  the  pure  religion 
of  the  spirit;  his  disciples, — in  whom,  as  Strauss 
expresses  it,  a  thick  layer  of  Jewish  jDrejudices 
prevented  the  pure  conception  of  the  Messianic  idea 
—  did  not  understand  him  at  all ;  put  something 
totally  different  in  its  place,  an  unspiritual,  substan- 
tially Jewish  religion :  and  this,  nevertheless,  con- 
quers the  world.  Strauss  cannot,  if  he  would,  do 
away  with  the  fact,  that  not  his  Christ,  but  the  Christ 
of  the  Gospels  ;  not  his  Christianity,  but  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  apostles,  —  conquered  the  world,  and 
has  ruled  it  up  to  this  time.  The  disciples  there- 
fore, or  whoever  made  the  representations  of  Christ 
in  the  Gospels,  are  the  founders  of  this  Christianity, 
which,  though  it  is  not  the  true  one  of  Strauss,  is 
the  world-conquering  and  world-governing  Christi- 
anity. How  did  the  disciples  get  the  idea  of  this 
Christ  ?  Yery  simply :  by  reasoning  from  the  Old- 
Testament  prophecies  to  their  fulfilment  in  Jesus, 
by  the  constantly  repeated  argument,  —  this  or  that 
was  prophesied  of  the  Messiah  and  is  expected  of 


THE   VIEWS   OP   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS.  73 

him,  therefore  he  must  have  done  it,  spoken  it,  suf- 
fered it.  This  is  the  reasoning  from  which  the  idea 
of  Christ  in  the  Gospels,  and  with  it  all  Christianity, 
arose.  This,  in  the  words  of  Lessing,  is  like  hang- 
ing the  world  on  the  threads  of  a  spider's  web. 
The  question  now  is.  How  did  the  disciples  come  to 
this  conclusion  ?  There  must  have  been  something 
to  lead  them  to  argue  in  this  way.  They  could  not 
have  drawn  this  illogical  conclusion  out  of  nothing. 
If  Jesus  was  no  more,  if  he  did  no  more  than 
Strauss  admits,  if  he  made  no  greater  impression, 
this  conclusion  is  an  utter  impossibility. 

Strauss  shifts  off  the  claim  made  in  my  first  dis- 
course that  whoever  denies  the  supernatural  origin 
of  Christianity  must  first  prove  its  natural  origin, 
by  saying  that  this  proof  should  not  be  demanded, 
because  the  extant  authorities  are  not  sufficient  for 
it.  Then  we  will  modify  our  claim  to  this,  that  at 
least  we  shall  not  be  asked  to  accept  as  history  such 
evidently  impossible  and  self-contradictory  theories 
as  these,  —  that  the  disciples,  narrowed  by  Jewish 
prejudices,  originated  such  a  representation  of  Christ ; 
and  that  the  world-conquering  movement  of  Christi- 
anity is  based  upon  such  an  argument  as  that  from 
the  prophecy  to  the  fulfilment. 

How  each  one  of  these  home-made  pictures  of 
Christ  reflects  the  likeness  of  the  man  who  made  it! 
—  a  plain  sign  that  it  is  merely  his  own  fabrication. 
In  Eenan's  Christ,  we  see  the  likeness  of  the  ready, 
ingenious,  sometimes  charming,  sometimes  frivolous 
Frenchman ;  in  Schenkel's  Christ,  we  see  the  like- 


74  THE  VIEWS   OF  SCHENKEL  AND  STRAUSS. 

ness  of  the  ecclesiastical  agitator ;  and,  in  Strauss's 
Christ,  we  see  the  likeness  of  the  learned  theorist, 
who  builds  the  whole  world  on  an  inference. 

All  these  things  are  substantially  the  same  that 
Strauss  discovered  thirty  years  ago,  and  offered  to 
the  world.  His  standpoint  remains  the  same,  and 
his  book  is  at  bottom  only  a  new  edition  of  the  ear- 
lier work.  The  development  of  criticism,  during 
the  last  thirty  years,  has  shown  clearly  enough  that 
this  was  a  failure. 

We  can  hardly  judge  otherwise  of  Schenkel's 
book.  In  him  the  old  rationalism  has  re-appeared. 
This  is  why  Strauss  attacks  Schenkel  so  violently. 
It  is  his  old  enemy,  rationalism,  whom  he  fights  in 
him.  In  no  theologian  of  the  present  day  are  there 
so  many  characteristics  of  this  as  in  Schenkel.  He 
has  the  same  doctrine  of  the  accommodation  of  the 
Lord,  the  same  natural  explanation  of  miracles. 
For  instance,  in  the  treatment  of  the  miracle  at  the 
wedding  in  Cana,  or  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  there 
is  hardly  any  difference  between  him  and  the  old 
Paulus  of  Heidelberg.  His  result  is  also  substan- 
tially the  same  :  Jesus  is  a  wise  teacher,  who  has 
freed  us  from  the  yoke  of  the  law.  He  has,  besides 
this,  only  put  a  new  piece  or  two  on  the  old  gar- 
ment, and  given  to  the  whole  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent coloring,  corresponding  more  to  the  present 
time.  To  this  coloring  belong  a  number  of  orthodox- 
sounding  forms  of  speech,  which  are  meant  to  be 
very  differently  understood.  Schenkel  speaks  of 
miracles,  but  means  a  gift  of  nature ;  of  the  divinity 


THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL  AND   STRAUSS.  75 

of  Christ,  but  means  only  a  moral  agreement  with 
God ;  of  an  atonement  for  the  sin  of  the  world,  but 
means  only  that  men  have  discovered  that  God  will 
not  judge  by  the  letter ;  of  redemption,  but  means 
only  redemption  from  the  law.  Strip  this  all  off, 
give  to  Schenkel's  words  their  true  meaning,  and 
the  Christ  of  Schenkel  is,  in  all  its  principal  feat- 
ures, the  Christ  of  the  old  rationalism. 

What  does  this  imply  ?  How  can  we  explain  this 
falling-back  to  a  standpoint  long  ago  surmounted  ? 
Schenkel  desires,  above  all  things,  to  influence  the 
people.  In  him  the  theologian  is  ruled  entirely  by 
the  ecclesiastical  party-leader.  Since  he  began  to 
be  that,  he  has  essentially  modified  his  theology. 
Schenkel's  effort  is,  not  to  found  a  new  theological 
school,  but  a  Church  with  a  new  constitution  and  a 
new  creed.  For  this  he  needs  the  people,  and  not 
that  part  of  it  (which  is  altogether  only  a  small 
fragment)  that  is  utterly  indifferent  to  the  Church 
and  Christianity,  that  would  rather  dispense  with 
them  entirely ;  but  the  part  which,  while  not  agree- 
ing with  the  old  creed,  still  wishes  to  have  a  Church, 
still  wishes  to  celebrate  Christmas  and  Easter,  and 
does  not  like  to  dispense  with  Sunday,  with  baptism, 
and  the  Lord's  Supper.  In  this  part  of  our  people, 
the  force  of  the  old  rationalism  is  still  dominant. 
The  people  do  not  understand  the  pantheism  of 
Strauss,  or  his  ideal  Christ,  and  would  shrink  in 
horror  from  his  radicalism.  They  understand  only 
the  old  rationalism ;  and  a  natural  instinct  has  di'awn 
Schenkel  thither.     The  whole   movement  of  late 


76  THE    VIEWS   OF   SCHENKEL   AND   STRAUSS. 

years,  wliicli  lias  had  Schenkel  for  its  party-leader, 
is  nothing  but  a  re-action  of  the  still  surviving  force 
of  the  old  rationalism  against  the  mightily  growing 
strength  of  the  faith.  Schenkel,  in  his  "  Character 
of  Jesus,"  has  tried  to  draw  for  this  tendency  its 
Christ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  portrait 
bears  the  features  of  the  Clirist  of  the  old  ration- 
alism. 

Here  lies  the  danger  of  the  book.  The  work  of 
Strauss  I  regard,  at  this  moment,  as  less  dangerous. 
According  to  its  title,  it  is  written  for  the  people ; 
but  the  people  will  not  understand  it,  and  there- 
fore will  not  read  it.  Schenkel's  book,  also,  is  far 
from  being  written  in  a  popular  style  ;  but  his  Christ 
has  an  affinity  with  the  tendency  which  still  sways  a 
large  part  of  our  people.  There  is  nevertheless  a 
consolation.  You  cannot  bring  a  dead  man  to  life 
again,  though  you  deck  him  with  ever  so  many 
spangles,  and  thrust  him  with  great  bombast  upon 
the  stage.  Such  ambiguity  as  Schenkel's  can  gain 
much  influence  for  a  time,  but  never  for  a  long 
time.  The  advancing  controversy  sets  it  aside ;  and 
the  decision,  long  delayed,  then  comes  so  much  the 
quicker.  There  is  no  need  of  very  sharp  eyes  to 
see  that  Schenkel's  Christ  will  not  live  long. 
Many  at  the  present  day,  and  many,  as  I  believe,  of 
honest  hearts,  give  themselves  up  to  the  hope  that 
they  have  found  here  an  accommodation  between 
the  old  faith  and  the  ideas  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tmy,  and  rejoice  that  they  still  remain  Christians ; 
but  it  will  be  shown  soon  enough  that  what  they 


THE  VIEWS  OP  SCHENKEL  AND  STRAUSS.     77 

thought  accommodation  was  merely  an  ambiguity, 
which  withstood  no  serious  attack.  The  fight,  wax- 
ing hotter,  will  force  decision,  and  will  soon  leave  no 
other  choice  than  either,  with  Strauss,  to  do  away 
altogether  with  the  so-called  illusion  of  miracles,  to 
set  aside  every  thing  supernatural  in  Christianity, 
and  with  it  Christianity  itself ;  or,  with  the  Fathers, 
to  stand  by  the  old  Christ,  whom  we  do  not  first 
have  to  seek  for,  whom  the  Church  has  always  had, 
and,  thank  God,  still  has. 

I  have  endeavored  to  set  before  you  the  chief 
modern  representations  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  My 
task,  however,  is  not  yet  finished.  The  judgment 
concerning  the  view  of  the  Church  on  the  one  hand, 
and  these  modern  representations  on  the  other,  de- 
pends especially  upon  two  questions,  which  we  have 
already  been  obliged  to  touch  upon  in  various  ways. 
The  first  question  is.  Have  we  in  the  writings  of  the 
New  Testament,  particularly  in  the  Gospels,  really 
sure  and  sufficient  historical  authorities  for  the  life 
of  Jesus  ?  The  next  question  is  concerning  mira- 
cles. Are  there  miracles,  or  not  ?  I  propose  to  dis- 
cuss these  questions  in  two  more  discourses. 


THIRD   DISCOURSE. 

THE  GOSPELS. 


A  T  the  close  of  the  preceding  discourse,  I  re- 
-^^^^  marked  that  there  were  two  principal  questions, 
upon  which  depended  the  judgment  concerning  the 
modern  representations  of  Jesus  on  the  one  hand, 
and,  to  put  it  briefly,  concerning  the  Church's  view 
on  the  other  hand.  The  first  question  related  to  the 
authorities :  Have  we  in  the  writings  of  the  New 
Testament,  particularly  in  the  Gospels,  really  trust- 
worthy historical  authorities  for  the  life  of  Jesus  ? 
The  next  question  related  to  miracles :  Are  there 
miracles,  or  not?  The  modern  representations  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  are  based  upon  negative  answers 
to  both  these  questions  :  the  view  of  the  Church 
presupposes  affirmative  answers  to  both  of  them. 
It  is  true,  each  question  is  involved  in  the  other. 
The  following  is  among  the  chief  reasons  urged 
against  our  Gospels  as  trustworthy  authorities : 
They  relate  incredible  things ;  things  which  could  not 
have  taken  place, — miracles.  Then,  again,  when  we 
appeal  to  the  Gospels  to  prove  the  actual  occurrence 


THE  GOSPELS.  79 

of  miracles,  our  appeal  is  rejected,  with  the  asser- 
tion, that  the  Gospels  do  not  contain  pure  history, 
but  merely  a  mixture  of  history  and  more  or  less 
legend  and  fiction ;  legendary,  embellished  history. 
I  must,  therefore,  ask  you  beforehand  to  permit  me, 
not  only  to  distinguish  the  first  question  from  the 
second,  but  also  to  keep  the  two  questions  entirely 
separate ;  otherwise,  an  unbiassed  examination  of 
the  first  question  is  impossible.  If  any  one  ap- 
proaches the  Gospels  with  the  presumption  that  no 
miracle  is  possible,  their  sentence  is  already  pro- 
nounced ;  for  they  are  full  of  miraculous  stories, 
and  further  investigation  is  superfluous.  The  ques- 
tion whether  miracles  have  occurred,  and  can  occur, 
shall  occupy  us,  God  willing,  at  our  next  meeting: 
to-day,  therefore,  let  us  leave  thi-s  entirely  out  of 
view,  and  examine  (this  question  always  excepted) 
the  authorities  for  the  history  of  Jesus,  as  impar- 
tially as  a  biographer,  before  he  writes  the  life  of 
any  one,  examines  the  authorities  from  which  he 
must  draw. 

The  only  sources  of  information  about  the  life 
of  Jesus  are  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament. 
Interesting  as  it  would  be  to  know  what  Jewish  and 
Gentile  contemporaries  may  have  told  about  him 
and  may  have  thought  of  him,  that  is  impossible. 
What  we  have  is  insignificant  and  worthless.  One 
passage  of  the  Jewish  historian  Josephus,  who 
lived  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
and  commanded  a  troop  in  the  Jewish  war  against 
the   Romans,  is  so  uncertain  in  its  text,  that  it 


80  THE  GOSPELS. 

thereby  loses  its  value.  What  is  furnished  by 
Jewish  tradition  is  of  uncertain  age,  and  is  too 
much  colored  by  hatred  of  Jesus  to  deserve  further 
attention.  Now  and  then,  to  be  sure,  bookselling 
industry  brings  to  market  such  books  as  "  Jesus  the 
Essene,"  "Letters  of  an  Essene  concerning  Jesus," 
and  the  like,  which  pretend  to  contain  contemporane- 
ous accounts  concerning  Jesus  :  this  is  mere  impos- 
ture. The  Gentiles  are  the  same  as  silent;  whenever 
they  speak,  they  tell  what  they  have  learned  from 
Christians  :  there  remain  for  us  only  the  writings  of 
the  New  Testament.  Before  we  begin  to  examine 
them,  it  may  be  well  to  premise  some  remarks  of 
a  general  character,  in  order  to  get  a  view  at  the 
outset  of  what  we  have  to  expect. 

We  ask  first,  Are  we,  on  the  whole,  upon  ground 
where  we  may  expect  true  history  ?  The  answer  is, 
Yes :  we  stand  in  a  perfectly  historical  period,  whose 
life  is,  in  general,  as  clear  and  transparent  to  us  as 
any  period  of  antiquity  can  be.  It  is  important  to 
bring  this  home  to  our  minds,  for  the  case  would  be 
very  different  if  the  origin  of  Christianity  fell  in  an 
age  which  could  not  pretend  to  established  history. 
The  facts  of  the  origin  of  Christianity  did  not  hap- 
pen in  secret  or  in  a  corner,  but  took  place  in  the 
open  day,  before  the  eyes  of  a  whole  people,  whose 
own  magistrates,  the  supreme  council  and  the  Ro- 
man governor,  were  concerned  in  them. 

We  ask  next.  Was  there  an  interest  in  this  his- 
tory among  the  circles  of  the  primitive  Christians, 
—  an  interest  to  explore  it,  and  to  transmit  it  safely  ? 


THE   GOSPELS.  81 

It  must  be  answered,  Yes,  in  the  highest  degree. 
The  preaching  of  the  gospel  was  at  the  start  the 
relation  of  history :  it  had  to  be  so.  When  the 
apostles  went  forth  preaching  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
no  one  knew  who  this  Christ  was ;  therefore  they 
were  obliged  to  begin  by  telling  .their  hearers  the 
history  of  Jesus.  Without  relating  history,  they 
could  not  advance  a  step.  So  essential  was  the  his- 
torical account  to  the  growth  of  the  Church,  that 
Paul  mentions,  among  the  offices  with  which  the 
Church  was  furnished,  an  office  of  evangelists.  The 
history  of  Jesus,  the  history  of  his  work,  is  intrinsi- 
cally the  object  of  the  Christian  faith.  Christianity 
is  not  a  system  of  doctrine,  which  one  can  propound 
without  imparting  any  thing  concerning  him  who 
established  it :  it  is  history.  Never  has  any  religious 
communion  had  a  greater  interest  in  the  history  of 
its  founder  than  the  Christian  Church.  How  dif- 
ferent are  the  relations  of  Mohammedanism  to  its 
founder!  and  yet  active  exertions  are  now  being 
made  to  establish  securely  the  tradition  concerning 
Mohammed  and  the  founding  of  Islam.  We  cannot 
suppose  that  the  oldest  Church  should  not  also  have 
done  what  it  could  in  this  respect.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  that  it  carelessly  permitted  legend  to  be  sub- 
stituted for  history :  there  are  sure  signs  also  to  the 
contrary.  I  will  mention  only  a  single  instance,  — 
the  carefulness  with  which  Paul,  in  the  First  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians,  specifies  the  witnesses  of  the 
resurrection.  We  should  by  no  means  suppose  that 
he  only  preached  Christ  is  risen !     Upon  this  state- 

6 


82  THE  GOSPELS. 

ment  he  would  have  received  as  little  credit  at  that 
day,  as  any  one  would  receive  at  the  present  time, 
who  should  say  that  So-and-so  has  risen  from  the 
dead.  He  brought  witnesses  who  had  seen  the 
risen  Christ  to  corroborate  his  own  testimony.  It 
has  been  said,  in  order  to  make  the  whole  ground 
insecure  from  beginning  to  end,  that  that  age  made 
no  use,  in  Christian  circles  at  least,  of  criticism ; 
that  it  was  wholly  uncritical ;  that,  consequently,  a 
reliable  judgment  concerning  what  are  and  what 
are  not  trustworthy  authorities  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected from  it.  That  age  certainly  did  know  little 
of  what  is  now  called  criticism :  instead  of  it,  it  pos- 
sessed in  a  high  degree  what  was  then,  as  now,  the 
chief  thing  in  all  criticism,  —  appreciation  of  the 
truth.  Besides,  since  the  history  in  question  was 
such  as  to  involve  the  hatred  of  the  whole  world 
when  it  was  professed,  and  might  lead  to  disgrace 
and  even  to  death,  people  were  apt  to  inquire 
carefully  beforehand  upon  what  ground  it  rested. 
Every  thing  is  opposed  to  the  view,  that  the  Church 
acted  so  uncritically  as  to  accept  any  thing  that 
seemed  edifying,  without  regard  for  its  truth.  Ter- 
tullian  incidentally  speaks  of  a  presbyter  who 
forged  a  history  about  Paul  and  Thekla,  and  pub- 
lished it  as  true.  When  this  was  discovered,  he 
was  punished  by  removal  from  office.  That  does 
not  agree  very  well  with  the  assertion,  that  the 
age  was  wholly  uncritical.  The  Church  used  actual 
criticism  upon  the  Gospels,  since  it  selected  our 
four  Gospels  from  a  number  of  others. 


THE  GOSPELS.  83 

But  I  will  not  begin  with  the  Gospels :  that  ground 
is  too  disputed  to  start  from.  Let  us  start  from 
ground  that  is  entirely  undisputed,  —  from  the  four 
Epistles  of  Paul,  which  the  most  extreme  criticism 
has  been  obliged  to  let  stand.  These  are  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  the  two  Epistles  to  the 
Corinthians,  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  That 
they  are  genuine  writings,  really  composed  by  the 
Apostle  Paul,  is  established  beyond  the  possibility 
of  a  doubt.  Let  us  see  what  they  contain  concern- 
ing the  history  of  Jesus. 

It  may,  perhaps,  appear  strange  that  there  is  so 
little  of  this.  The  apostle  seldom  relates  any  thing 
about  Jesus,  and  seldom  quotes  a  word  from  him. 
Reflection,  however,  makes  the  explanation  easy. 
The  Epistles  were  not  written  to  interest  Jews  or 
Gentiles  in  Christ  for  the  first  time,  but  to  guide 
and  to  strengthen  in  their  faith  those  who  had  been 
previously  won.  It  is  evident  to  the  careful  reader, 
that  Paul  always  presupposes  an  historical  founda- 
tion :  the  life  of  Jesus  is  known  to  his  readers ;  a 
detailed  historical  account  has  clearly  gone  before. 
Paul  refers  to  this  only  when  it  is  necessary.  How 
often  he  alludes  to  what  he  has  already  told  them, 
—  to  "his  gospel"  (Rom.  ii.  16)  !  When  there  is 
occasion  for  it,  some  particular  is  mentioned,  some- 
thing is  occasionally  given  in  detail,  —  such  as  the 
institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  the  account  of 
the  resurrection. 

By  collecting  what  the  Epistles  give  in  this  way, 
we  get  the  chief  facts  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  —  his  de- 


84  THE   GOSPELS. 

scent  from  the  family  of  David  (Rom.  i.  3);  Ms 
birth  from  a  woman  (1  Cor.  xi.  23,  et  seq.)  ;  his 
crucifixion,  death,  burial,  and  resurrection  (1  Cor. 
XY.  1,  et  seq.).  We  can  infer  still  more  with  perfect 
certainty.  The  way  in  which  Paul  speaks  of  bap- 
tism (Rom.  vi.  4 ;  1  Cor.  xii.  13  ;  1  Cor.  i.  17  ;  Gal. 
iii.  27,  et  al.)  certainly  leads  us  to  the  inference,  that 
he  recognized  it  as  established  by  Christ ;  and  when 
he  traces  to  the  Lord  the  miraculous  power  of  the 
apostles  (1  Cor.  xii.,  et  aL},  he  must  regard  Christ 
as  the  most  original  and  the  richest  possessor  of 
this  power.  Paul  gives  few  details,  for  the  reason 
just  stated  ;  but  those  which  he  gives  agree  entirely 
with  the  evangelical  accounts,  —  for  instance,  that 
the  rulers  of  Israel  were  guilty  of  Jesus'  death  (1 
Cor.  ii.  8)  ;  that  he  was  betrayed  (1  Cor.  xi.  23)  ; 
that  he  rose  again  the  third  day  (1  Cor.  xv.  4). 
Paul's  whole  representation  of  Jesus  is  precisely 
the  same  as  that  of  the  Gospels.  Jesus,  in  his  view, 
is  not  merely  the  sinless,  holy  man  (1  Cor.  xv.  21 ; 
Rom.  V.  19)  :  he  is  more  than  man,  —  he  is  the  Son 
of  God  (Rom.  i.  4  ;  Gal.  iv.  4,  et  al}  and  the  son  of 
David,  who  was  rich  in  divine  glory,  and  for  our 
sakes  became  poor  (2  Cor.  viii.  9)  ;  he  is  the  medi- 
ator in  the  creation  of  the  world  (1  Cor.  viii.  6)  ; 
the  man  from  heaven  (1  Cor.  xv.  47),  who  now  sits 
at  the  right  hand  of  God  (Rom.  viii.  34),  and  shall 
come  back  from  heaven  to  judge  the  world  (Rom. 
ii.  16)  ;  he  is  Lord  in  the  highest  sense,  the  object 
and  substance  of  faith  and  of  worship.  We  need 
only  read  these  four  Epistles  of  Paul  to  become 


THE  GOSPELS.  85 

convinced  that  the  Christ  of  Paul  was  a  different  per- 
son from  him  whom  Renan,  Strauss,  and  Schenkel 
now  offer  us  as  the  truly  historical  Christ. 

Paul  was  not  the  only  individual  who  believed  in 
this  Christ.  Add  to  his  Epistles  the  first  Epistle  of 
Peter,  which  all  sober  criticism  must  admit  to  be  a 
genuine  Epistle  of  this  apostle.  Here  also  is  the 
same  idea  of  Christ.  Take  the  Revelation  of  John, 
which,  according  to  modern  criticism,  passes  for  a 
genuine  writing  of  the  apostle.  Whether  it  is 
really  his,  or  is  the  work  of  another  John  (opinions 
still  differ  about  it),  at  all  events  it  is  a  writing 
of  the  apostolic  age,  and  it  gives  no  other  idea  of 
Christ.  In  it  he  is  the  First  and  the  Living  One, 
the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  (Rev.  i.  8,  11,  et  al.},  the 
object  of  divine  veneration  and  worship  (Rev.  i.  17, 
et  al.').  The  Church  can  comfort  herself,  therefore, 
with  the  assurance  that  her  own  idea  of  Christ  is 
that  of  the  apostolic  age,  —  is  that  of  Peter  and 
Paul,  and  of  the  apostolic  man  who  wrote  the 
Apocalypse. 

If  this  idea  is  said  to  be  false,  consider  what  the 
assertion  means.  It  means  no  less  than  that  the 
apostolic  age,  —  that  the  very  persons,  part  of  whom 
were  eye-witnesses,  part  of  whom  were  acquainted 
^ith  eye-witnesses,  formed  for  themselves  a  false 
idea  of  the  Lord.  If  it  is  said  that  the  Church 
afterwards  erroneously  deified  the  man  Jesus,  and 
this  is  the  error  from  which  Christianity  must  be 
freed,  in  order  to  recover  its  original  purity,  we 
reply  that  this  pretended  error  at  least  began  very 


86  THE  GOSPELS. 

soon,  so  soon,  that  pure  Christianity  —  pure  accord* 
ing  to  such  notions  of  purity  —  never  existed.  Any 
one  is  at  liberty,  of  course,  to  discard  the  idea  of 
Christ  given  by  Peter  and  Paul ;  but  then  let  him 
be  honest  enough  to  say  so:  he  can  put  another 
representation  in  its  place,  and  then  let  him  not  act 
as  if  he  could  simamon  the  apostolic  age  as  evidence 
in  its  favor,  but  openly  say  that  this  portrait  of 
Christ  is  of  his  own  make.  If  we  had  not  a  single 
line  more  from  the  apostolic  age  than  the  writings 
just  cited,  these  documents  alone  would  be  sufficient 
to  enable  us  to  say  with  perfect  certainty,  the  Christ 
of  Kenan,  of  Strauss,  and  of  Schenkel,  is  not  the 
truly  historical  Christ. 

As  we  now  turn  to  the  Gospels,  we  must  think 
of  their  origin  as  simply  and  naturally  as  possible. 
It  is  true  that  over  all  and  in  all  rules  the  Holy 
Spirit,  whose  task,  as  the  Lord  expressly  indicated, 
was  to  remind  his  disciples  of  all  that  he  had  said 
unto  them,  taking  care  that  the  future  Church 
should  not  lack  a  sure,  sufficient  likeness  of  her 
Founder  and  Head  for  her  faith  and  hfe.  The  way 
of  the  Spirit,  however,  is  not  to  suppress  what  is 
natural,  but  to  purify  it ;  and  it  is  with  this  human, 
natural  side  of  the  formation  of  the  Gospels  that 
we  have  now  to  deal.  It  is  self-evident  that  not  the 
written  record,  but  the  oral  tradition,  of  the  acts 
and  speeches  of  the  Lord  came  first;  especially 
since  the  thoughts  and  hopes  of  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians were  not  directed  towards  a  distant  future  of 
the  Church  upon  earth,  but  towards  a  speedy  sec- 


THE  GOSPELS.  87 

ond-coming  of  the  Lord.  The  written  record  is 
only  the  final,  most  perfect  account  of  this  oral 
tradition. 

At  first  every  eye-witness  and  ear-witness  related 
what  he  had  seen  or  heard ;  and  while  the  apostles, 
who  had  accompanied  Jesus  during  his  whole  public 
ministry,  were  thereby  able  to  give  the  fullest  and 
most  correct  information  concerning  his  life,  they 
were  of  course  followed  by  others,  who  collected, 
in  addition  to  what  they  had  themselves  seen,  re- 
ports from  other  witnesses.  Groups  and  series  of 
stories  about  the  Lord  and  his  discourses  were 
formed.  People  took  pleasure  in  telling  and  hear- 
ing as  much  as  possible  of  what  the  Lord  said 
and  did;  but  they  did  not  undertake  to  collect 
all  of  his  words,  or  to  recount  all  of  his  miracles. 
The  entire  history  which  we  possess  is  only  a 
selection  ;  and  this  selection  was,  humanly  speak- 
ing, influenced  by  all  sorts  of  accidental  circum- 
stances. People  from  Galilee  must  have  gladly 
and  often  told  stories  of  the  Galilean  ministry  of 
the  Lord ;  and,  since  the  majority  of  his  first  follow- 
ers were  Galileans,  the  Galilean  stories  formed  the 
largest  part  of  the  oral  tradition,  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end.  Wlien  some  one  who  had  been 
healed  by  the  Lord  became  afterwards  an  active 
member  of  the  Church,  an  especial  interest  was 
then  attached  to  the  story  of  this  cure ;  for  they  had 
the  living  witness  there  with  them.  It  is  probable, 
for  instance,  that  we  owe  to  some  such  circum- 
stance the  mention  of  the  name  of  the  blind  Bar- 


88  THE   GOSPELS. 

timseus,  the  son  of  Timgeus  (Mark  x.  46)  ;  or  the 
mention  of  Simon  the  Cyrenian,  the  father  of  Alex- 
ander and  Rufus  (Mark  xv.  21).  Bartimgeus, 
Alexander,  and  Rufus  were  known  as  members  of 
the  Chm'ch  ;  and  the  story  was  naturally  told  with 
the  familiar  names.  In  other  cases  the  names  were 
soon  lost,  as  in  every  popular  tale ;  and  the  story 
was  told  merely  of  a  leper  or  a  paralytic,  without 
any  names.  The  same  thing  happened  with  ac- 
counts of  times  and  places.  There  was  no  special 
interest  in  these  at  first.  The  main  point  was,  that 
the  Lord  had  healed  this  or  that  sick  person,  had 
spoken  this  or  that  word ;  and  it  was  not  very  im- 
portant when  and  where  he  had  done  it.  These  oral 
traditions  concerning  the  life  of  the  Lord  should 
not,  therefore,  be  thought  of  as  a  complete  biogra- 
phy, with  every  fact  and  date  correctly  arranged ; 
although  the  chief  points,  his  death  and  his  resur- 
rection, must  have  been  contained  in  every  ac- 
count. 

The  desire  must  have  early  arisen  to  commit  to 
writing  what  had  been  orally  transmitted.  A  record 
of  what  had  been  heard  was  important  for  one's  self, 
and  useful  as  a  means  of  enlightening  foreign  breth- 
ren who  asked  for  information.  The  first  records 
naturally  originated  in  this  way.  These  did  not 
comprehend  every  thing,  but  were  simple  tran- 
scripts of  the  oral  tradition.  The  wider  the  Church 
spread,  the  farther  time  advanced,  the  greater  the 
interest  in  written  records  necessarily  became ;  and, 
apart  from  other  evidence,  the  introduction  to  the 


THE  GOSPELS.  89 

Gospel  of  Luke  shows  plainly  enough  that  there 
were  a  great  number  of  writings  besides  our  Gos- 
pels, which  related  more  or  less  correctly  the  life 
and  ministry  of  the  Lord.  Our  first  three  Gospels 
form  the  most  complete  result  of  this  process,  and 
have  therefore  been  acknowledged  by  the  Church. 

These  must  be  first  considered  apart  from  the 
fourth  Gospel.  The  fourth  Gospel  stands  entirely 
alone ;  for,  as  we  see  at  a  glance,'  it  gives  much 
that  is  different,  recounts  different  miracles,  repeats 
different  discourses,  from  the  first  three  Gospels. 
These  three,  as  no  one  who  has  read  them  can 
fail  to  observe,  are  most  intimately  connected  with 
one  another.  They  not  only  tell  substantially  the 
same  story,  but  they  frequently  agree  in  the  style 
of  narration,  and  in  the  very  words.  They  are  so 
much  alike,  that  we  have  their  accounts  put  side  by 
side,  as  parallels.  This  combination  is  called  "  syn- 
opsis," a  word  derived  from  the  Greek ;  and  hence 
the  first  three  Gospels  are  called  Synoptic  Gospels. 
The  explanation  of  their  relationship  is  one  of  the 
hardest  problems  of  New-Testament  science.  Se- 
rious attempts  to  solve  this  problem  were  first 
undertaken  about  the  beginning  of  this  century. 
Numerous  theories  have  been  advanced,  and  some 
one  of  them  has  always  routed  the  others ;  but  it 
would  lead  us  too  far  to  consider  them  at  present.  I 
will  only  add,  that  formerly  the  inclination  was  to- 
wards regarding  the  Gospel  of  Mark  as  the  latest, 
and  as  an  abstract  from  the  other  two ;  but  lately — 
especially  since   Ewald's  works   on  the   question, 


90  THE  GOSPELS. 

which  have  justly  received  manifold  acknowledg- 
ment —  the  views  more  and  more  miite  in  the  con- 
trary direction,  towards  holding  the  Gospel  of  Mark 
as  the  earliest,  and  as  the  basis  of  the  other  two. 
Nevertheless,  this  whole  problem  should  not  be 
thought  to  be  at  all  certainly  solved.  There  are 
still  not  a  few  scholars  of  the  most  opposite  tenden- 
cies who  hold  and  defend  other  views. 

This  whole  inquiry  is  not  so  important  for  us  as 
the  question,  Wlien  did  our  Gospels  originate  ?  The 
judgment  concerning  their  trustworthiness  depends 
mainly  upon  this.  The  nearer  they  are  to  the 
events  which  they  relate,  the  more  surely  may  we 
expect  trustworthy  evidence  in  them ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  farther  their  origin  is  removed  from  the 
apostolic  age,  the  more  possible,  at  least,  is  it  that 
legend  had  crept  into  them.  The  Tiibingen  school 
therefore  sought  to  bring  down  the  Gospels  as  far 
as  possible  into  the  second  century.  According  to 
Baur,  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  was  first  written  be- 
tween 130  and  134 ;  that  of  Luke,  not  before  150. 
But  we  certainly  find  the  Synoptic  Gospels  in  the 
common  and  acknowledged  use  of  the  Church  as 
early  as  140-150.  As  early  as  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  a  heathen  enemy  of  Christianity, 
Celsus,  quotes  from  them  his  information  about  the 
person  and  the  work  of  Jesus,  as  from  books  that 
were  generally  known.  We  find  them  still  earlier, 
130-140,  among  the  Gnostic  heretics.  One  of  these, 
Marcion,  worked  over  the  Gospel  of  Luke  for  his 
own  purposes,  —  an  irrefragable  proof  that  this  Gos- 


THE  GOSPELS.  91 

pel  was  then  widely  known.  Therefore  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  the  Gospels  must  have  originated 
some  time  before  this.  Accordingly,  a  backward 
movement  began  in  the  Tiibingen  school  itself. 
Baur's  disciples  set  the  Gospels  farther  and  farther 
back.  Zeller  thinks  Luke  was  written  about  130  ; 
Volckmar  puts  Mark  about  80,  Luke  100,  Matthew 
110 ;  Kostlin  puts  the  original  draught  of  Mat- 
thew between  70  and  80,  its  elaboration  in  its  pres- 
ent form  90-100,  Luke  a  little  earlier,  Mark  a 
little  later;  Hilgenfeld  puts  Matthew  and  Mark 
about  the  end  of  the  first  century,  Luke  in  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century.  This  brings 
us  substantially  into  the  first  century ;  and  now 
Ewald,  and  the  latest  investigators  of  the  subject, 
Weiss  and  Holtzmann,  go  still  farther  back.  Ac- 
cording to  Ewald,  Mark  wrote  after  Peter's  death ; 
the  Gospel  of  Matthew  originated  before  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem,  consequently  before  70  ;  the 
Gospel  of  Luke  five  or  ten  years  after  the  end 
of  the  Jewish  war,  consequently  75-80.  Similar 
results  are  reached  by  Holtzmann,  who  also  places 
the  older  authorities,  upon  which  our  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels are  originally  based,  with  these  Gospels  within 
the  years  60-80. 

Sober  scientific  study,  whose  conclusions  are  not 
foregone,  can  reach  no  other  results.  The  exter- 
nal evidence  alone,  apart  from  all  other,  does  not 
permit  it.  This  is  as  good  and  as  sure  as  we  could 
desire  from  an  age  in  which  little  was  written,  and 
from  which  less  has  come  down  to  us.     All  that  we 


92  THE   GOSPELS. 

have  from  the  period  between  the  end  of  the  apos- 
tolic age  and  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  could 
be  comprised  in  a  medium-sized  volume ;  and  yet 
there  is  no  lack  of  evidence  for  all  three  Gospels. 

To  begin  with  Mark.  The  oldest  tradition  testifies 
unanimously  that  he  composed  his  Gospel  under  the 
special  influence  of  Peter,  whose  interpreter  he  was. 
Papias,*  for  instance,  a  man  whose  life  extends  into 
the  apostolic  age,  cites  a  still  more  ancient  witness, 
—  John  the  Presbyter,  —  and  says,  "  Mark,  the  in- 
terpreter of  Peter,  wrote  down  accurately  what  he 
remembered  of  Peter's  discourses  about  the  words 
and  works  of  the  Lord."  Yes  :  Christian  antiquity 
goes  in .  many  ways  so  far  back,  as  to  treat  Mark's 
Gospel  as  a  Gospel  of  Peter.  According  to  external 
and  internal  arguments,  it  cannot  have  been  written 
later  than  about  65. 

The  Gospel  of  Luke  has  its  surest  evidence  in 
the  Acts.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  that  these  two 
writings,  making  as  they  do  one  whole,  are  the  work 
of  a  single  author.  The  author  of  the  Book  of  Acts 
appears  in  it  as  a  travelling  companion  of  Paul; 
and,  although  he  nowhere  mentions  his  own  name, 
antiquity  testifies  unanimously  that  he  was  Luke. 
This  agrees  with  the  thoroughly  Pauline  tone  of  the 
Gospel  of  Luke.  According  to  many  signs,  this 
Gospel  was  first  written  after  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem. 

The  Gospel  of  Matthew  is  in  a  somewhat  different 
condition.  According  to  the  tradition  of  the  Church,! 

*  See  Note  I.  p.  152.  t  See  Note  II.  p.  153. 


THE  GOSPELS.  93 

Matthew  wrote  originally  not  Greek,  but  Hebrew,  — 
or,  to  s-peak  more  accurately,  Aramaic,  the  popular 
language  of  his  time.  This  Aramaic  composition  of 
the  apostle  most  probably  did  not  comprise  all  of  our 
present  first  Gospel,  but  was  a  collection  of  the  Lord's 
discourses,  accompanied  perhaps  with  bits  of  narra- 
tive. This  collection  was  then  enlarged  to  a  complete 
Gospel,  and  in  this  form  was  translated  into  Greek. 
As  for  the  time  of  its  composition,  the  collection 
of  discourses  must  have  been  made  very  early ;  for 
the  Gospel  itself  in  its  Greek  translation,  according 
to  external  and  internal  evidence,  must  be  placed 
within  the  sixty  years  preceding  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem. 

We  find,  on  summing  up  the  results,  that  our 
Synoptic  Gospels  were  written  in  the  apostolic  age, 
—  to  mark  the  time  only  very  generally,  between 
60  and  75 ;  and  although  no  one  of  them,  as  we 
possess  it,  is  the  work  of  an  immediate  disciple  of 
Jesus,  they  still  point  indirectly  to  such  persons, — 
the  first  to  Matthew,  the  second  to  Peter. 

Let  us  notice  what  must  follow  from  these  consid- 
erations. 

When  any  one  asserts  that  our  Gospels  contain, 
not  history,  but  legend,  or  at  least  history  trans- 
formed and  embellished  by  legend,  he  must  be  able 
to  prove  the  possibility  of  such  a  comprehensive 
legendary  formation.  Every  legendary  growth  re- 
quires, to  speak  of  nothing  else,  a  certain  time. 
When  the  true  idea  of  an  historical  personage  is 
obscured  by  distance  of  time,  and  there  remains 


94  THE  GOSPELS. 

only  a  general  impression  of  its  character,  then  the 
growth  of  legend  first  becomes  possible  to  any  great 
degree.  Where  is  there  time  for  such  a  thing  in 
this  case?  There  are  only  about  thirty  years  be- 
tween the  Lord's  death  and  the  composition  of  Mark. 
A  large  number  of  persons  who  had  seen  the  Lord, 
who  had  themselves  gone  through  this  history,  were 
still  living.  Paul  was  able  to  appeal  to  hundreds  of 
eye-witnesses  of  the  resurrection.  Is  there  room 
here  for  much  of  a  legendary  growth  ?  Remember 
what  I  have  previously  remarked,  that  we  are  stand- 
ing in  a  perfectly  historical  age.  The  character  of 
the  age  was  far  more  that  of  unbelief  than  of  naive 
belief.  Such  an  age  can  intentionally  create  reli- 
gious fiction,  or  all  kinds  of  fantastic  figures  of 
superstition,  which  at  that  time,  as  always,  went 
side  by  side  with  unbelief ;  but  it  is  not  inclined  to 
a  naive  formation  of  legend.  And  what  attitude  did 
the  apostles  take  towards  this  legendary  growth, 
which  not  only  began  in  their  day,  but  must  have 
then  displayed  its  greatest  activity  ?  It  is  incon- 
ceivable that  the  apostles,  with  their  moral  purity 
and  thoroughly  sincere  characters,  took  part  in  this; 
or  that  they  repeated  to  the  Church  as  history  these 
legends  which  had  grown  up  without  their  aid.  If 
we  cannot  suppose  this,  how  can  we  fancy  that  these 
legends,  without  the  aid  of  the  apostles,  or  in  spite 
of  their  direct  contradiction,  found  acceptance  and 
belief  in  the  churches,  which  were  wont  in  every 
particular  to  look  up  to  the  apostles  as  the  witnesses 
appointed  by  the  Lord  ? 


THE  GOSPELS.  95 

Finally,  I  pray  you  to  notice  another  point.  If 
the  disciples,  the  eye-witnesses  and  ear-witnesses, 
received  only  a  moderately  deep  impression  of  Jesus; 
if  they  preserved  only  a  moderately  correct  idea  of 
him  as  he  lived  among  them, — it  cannot  be  thought 
possible,  that,  during  the  thirty  or  forty  years  which 
intervened  between  the  death  of  the  Lord  and  the 
composition  of  our  Gospels,  an  unhistorical  and 
legendary  idea  of  Christ  should  have  intruded  itself 
into  the  place  of  the  genuine  historical  idea.  Who- 
ever asserts  that  the  gospel  picture  of  Christ  is  not 
truly  historical,  must  make  up  his  mind  to  say  that 
the  disciples  got  no  true  idea  of  the  Lord  from  their 
intercourse  with  him,  so  that  a  false  conception 
could  easily  foist  itself  upon  them ;  or,  in  other 
words,  he  must  make  up  his  mind  to  say,  that  the 
person,  the  words,  and  the  works  of  Jesus  made  no 
real  impression.  Then  let  him  explain  how  it  comes 
to  pass,  that  the  whole  great  movement  of  the  world 
represents  itself  as  proceeding  from  the  person  of 
Jesus.  If  any  thing  is  settled,  this  is  settled :  that 
Jesus  made  an  impression  upon  his  contemporaries, 
of  a  depth,  a  liveliness,  and  a  permanency,  such  as 
no  one  else  ever  made.  Hence,  during  the  thirty 
or  forty  years  after  his  death,  they  who  had  been  his 
companions  must  have  had  a  lively,  genuine,  and 
true  idea  of  him ;  and  if  we  suppose  that  only  the 
essential  contents  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  originated 
during  this  period, — which  according  to  the  present 
position  of  science  may  be  considered  certain,  —  the 
picture  of  Christ  which  they  give  us  must  be  this 
genuine,  historical  idea. 


96  THE  GOSPELS. 

In  the  fourth  Gospel,  we  have  evidence  which  is 
still  more  direct.  If  this  was  written  by  John,  it 
gives  us  an  account  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  than  which 
there  could  be  no  better,  —  the  account  of  one  of  his 
own  disciples,  of  his  most  intimate  disciple.  The 
importance  of  the  question  of  the  genuineness  of 
John's  Gospel  has  been  recognized  on  all  sides ;  and 
the  discussions  concerning  it  have  been  so  active 
during  late  years,  that  their  literature  alone  would 
make  a  small  library.  I  am  therefore  the  more  sen- 
sible of  the  difficulty  of  giving  you  even  an  approx- 
imately adequate  representation  of  it.  In  order  to 
do  this,  it  will  be  necessary  to  go  into  many  details, 
although  the  limits  of  a  discourse  oblige  a  restriction 
to  the  main  points. 

The  first  question  concerns  the  external  evidence 
for  the  fourth  Gospel.  Who  knows  it,  and  vouches 
for  its  Johannine  origin  ? 

Let  us  start  from  that  pomt  of  time  when  it  was 
generally  acknowledged  and  used  in  the  Church  as 
an  apostolic  writing.  This  was  about  180.  At  this 
time,  Irenseus  used  it  in  Lyons  ;  and  the  Church  in 
that  place  cited  it  in  a  letter  which  it  wrote  on  the 
occasion  of  the  great  persecution  of  177.  It  is  also 
found  in  use  in  the  Roman  Church,  as  an  old  scrip- 
tural index  of  this  Church  proves  ;  and  by  the  Alex- 
andrian and  Syrian  Churches,  as  is  proved  by  the 
writings  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  for  the  one,  and 
by  the  Syrian  translation  of  the  Bible  for  the  other. 
There  is  no  contradiction  of  this  :  only  a  small 
sect,  the  so-called  Alogi,  rejected  it,  solely  because 


THE  GOSPELS.  97 

it  did  not  agree  with  them.  If  there  had  been  at 
that  time  the  slightest  recollection  of  a  later  ori- 
gin of  this  Gospel,  they  would  certainly  have  taken 
advantage  of  it ;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  such  a 
thing.  This  Gospel  belongs  to  the  undisputed,  gen- 
erally acknowledged  Scriptures. 

The  testimony  of  Irenseus,  just  mentioned,  is  es- 
pecially important.  He  had  formerly  lived  in  Asia 
Minor,  and  was  a  disciple  of  Polycarp  of  Smyrna,  who 
had  personally  known  John.  Ireneeus's  testimony,* 
therefore,  points  directly  into  the  circle  in  which 
the  Gospel  originated.  Can  we  suppose  that  Iren- 
seus would  have  accepted  a  Gospel  as  coming  from 
John,  if  he  had  never  heard  of  such  a  Gospel  from 
the  men  who  lived  with  John  ? 

We  can  go  still  farther  back.  The  next  witness 
we  meet  is  Justin  Martyr,  a  number  of  whose  writ- 
ings, from  the  years  138-160,  are  in  our  posses- 
sion. Justin  did  not  yet  have  the  separate  selection 
of  our  four  Gospels,  but  used  also  several  which 
were  afterwards  not  acknowledged  by  the  Church. 
He  calls  them  altogether,  "  Memoirs  of  the  Apos- 
tles." Among  them  was  certainly  the  Gospel  of 
John.  He  quotes  several  passages  which  are  to  be 
found  in  this  alone  ;  and,  what  is  more  important, 
there  are  many  Johannine  expressions  in  his  own 
style,  and  his  whole  method  of  teaching  can  be  un- 
derstood only  by  supposing  him  to  have  been  familiar 
with  John's  Gospel. 

This  evidence  has  been  further  corroborated  by  a 

•  See  Note  III.  p.  154. 
7 


98  THE   GOSPELS. 

remarkable  discovery  of  late  years.  It  was  asked 
by  our  opponents,  If  Justin  possessed  the  fourth 
Gospel,  why  did  he  not  use  it  oftener  ?  Its  rare 
use  was  said  to  make  it  doubtful  that  it  had  been 
used  at  all.  Then  there  appeared  a  precisely  sim- 
ilar case  in  another  writing  of  the  period,  —  the 
so-called  "  Clementine  Homilies,"  a  Christian  ro- 
mance which  originated  in  heretical  circles  probably 
about  150-160,  but  which  we  did  not  possess  entire, 
for  the  end  of  the  manuscript  was  wanting.  A  com- 
plete manuscript  was  found  in  a  Roman  library  ;  and, 
lo !  one  of  the  last  chapters  contained,  word  for 
word,  the  whole  story  of  the  man  that  was  born 
blind,  from  John  ix.  Thereby  we  not  only  gain 
indubitable  evidence  for  the  date  about  160,  but 
also  the  testimony  of  Justin  is  corroborated.  Yolck- 
mar,  to  be  sure,  reverses  the  matter,  and  asserts 
that  the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel  made  use  of 
Justin,  —  a  plainly  desperate  shift.  Hilgenfeld,  on 
the  contrary,  went  back  a  step.  Baur  still  thought 
the  Gospel  originated  about  150,  but  Hilgenfeld  put 
it  back  into  the  years  120-140. 

Let  us  now  go  farther  back,  and  explore  the 
period  before  150.  This  also  has  been  illuminated  by 
a  new  discovery.*  A  few  years  ago,  in  Paris,  a  man- 
uscript was  found,  before  unnoticed,  which  on  closer 
examination  proved  to  be  a  writing  of  the  cele- 
brated ancient  bishop,  Hippolytus,  "  Against  all 
Heresies."  This  contains  accurate  accounts  of 
many  Gnostic  sects  of  the  time,  and,  what  is  espe- 

*  See  Note  IV.  p.  154. 


THE  GOSPELS.  99 

cially  important,  many  extracts  from  their  lost  writ- 
ings. Here  we  learn  that  the  leaders  of  the  Gnostic 
party,  Basilides  and  Valentine,  used  the  Gospel  of 
John  as  early  as  130-140.  When  we  consider  how 
slowly  books  spread  in  those  days,  we  may  certainly 
say,  that  if  this  Gospel  was  used  by  the  Gnostics  as 
early  as  130-140,  —  they  merely  appropriating  what 
they  found  already  acknowledged  by  the  Church, 
—  then  it  must  have  originated  at  the  latest  about 
110-120. 

To  this  period  Schenkel  goes  back.  Whoever  is 
obliged  to  date  the  writing  of  the  fourth  Gospel  so 
early  as  this,  is  utterly  unable  to  assume  that  it 
is  entirely  unauthentic ;  and  Schenkel  consequently 
does  not  assume  that.  When  we  remember,  that, 
according  to  all  witnesses,  John  lived  until  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century,  we  could  perhaps 
understand  how  a  Gospel  could  have  been  fathered 
upon  him  about  140-150 ;  but  that  this  happened 
about  ten  years  after  his  death,  and  that  such  a 
Gospel  should  have  been  accepted  without  hesita- 
tion as  genuine,  —  this  cannot  be  understood. 

But  we  have  witnesses  who  reach  still  farther 
back.  Their  testimony  is  indirect,  but  not  the  less 
important  on  that  account.  Papias  and  Polycarp 
are  acquainted  with  the  First  Epistle  of  John. 
Polycarp  quotes  a  passage  from  it.  The  author  of 
the  First  Epistle  is  certainly  the  author  of  the 
Gospel.  Thus  we  have  the  testimony,  though  in- 
direct, of  a  man  who  had  associated  with  John. 
Many  ways  of  escape  from  this  decisive  testimony 


100  THE  GOSPELS. 

have  been  tried,  but  all  the  trials  are  in  vain.  It 
has  been  denied,  that  the  Gospel  and  the  Epistlte 
were  by  the  same  author.  Baur  declares  the 
Epistle  to  be  a  weak  imitation  of  the  Gospel. 
Hilgenfeld  reverses  their  relation,  and  puts  the 
Epistle  first.  In  my  opinion,  whoever  once  reads, 
without  prejudice,  the  Epistle  and  the  Gospel,  will 
no  longer  deny  that  one  man  must  have  written 
both.  It  has  been  said  that  the  occurrence  of  single 
sentences  does  not  prove  that  the  whole  Epistle 
was  yet  in  existence.  This  means  that  there  is 
nothing  to  say.  It  has  been  denied  that  the  Epis- 
tle of  Poly  carp  himself  is  genuine.  This  is  mere 
violence.  For  the  Epistle  of  Polycarp,  we  have  the 
certain  testimony  of  Irenaeus,  his  disciple.  Here 
the  various  evidence  concentrates.  Irenaeus,  who 
personally  knew  Polycarp,  testifies  that  he  wrote 
the  Epistle  which  bears  his  name.  In  this  Epistle, 
Polycarp,  who  personally  knew  John,  quotes  his 
first  Epistle.  If  the  Epistle  is  Johannine,  so  must 
the  Gospel  be.  I  do  not  see  how  this  evidence  can 
be  broken. 

The  result  of  our  investigation  must  be  the 
acknowledgment,  that  there  is  no  want  of  external 
evidence  for  the  Gospel ;  that  it  is  as  well  authenti- 
cated as  any  other  writing  of  the  New  Testament.* 

The  opponents  of  its  genuineness  consequently 
lay  more  stress  upon  internal  evidence.  Formerly 
it  was  thought  that  no  other  Gospel  bore  so  plainly 
the  stamp  of  apostolic  origin  as  this  "  tender,  chief 

*  See  Note  V.  p.  154. 


THE  GOSPELS.  101 

Gospel ; "  but  now  it  is  said  that  the  contents  of 
this  Gospel  clearly  betray  the  fact,  that  it  could  not 
have  been  written  by  John. 

To  begin  with  the  most  external  part.  A  list  of 
geographical  and  historical  errors  are  given,  as 
signs  that  the  author  was  not  accurately  acquainted 
with  the  times  and  places  in  which  the  life  of  Jesus 
was  spent,  and  therefore  could  not  have  been  John. 
Schenkel  even  denies  that  he  was  an  inhabitant  of 
Palestine,  and  a  Jew.  Schenkel  and  Strauss  cite 
four  or  j&ve  such  errors.  Even  these  opponents  can 
find  no  more.  Then  the  case  must  stand  very  well 
for  John.  Consider  a  moment.  Some  one,  who  is 
neither  an  inhabitant  of  Palestine  nor  a  Jew,  writes 
in  the  second  century  a  life  of  Jesus,  with  accurate 
references  to  times  and  places,  with  the  most  de- 
tailed descriptions  (in  this  very  thing  the  fourth 
Gospel  abounds  more  than  any  other)  ;  and  in  it 
the  sharpest  critical  eyes  can  find  no  more  than  four 
or  five  errors  in  geography  and  history.  This  would 
be  very  wonderful ;  and  therefore  I  think  it  may 
be  said  in  general,  before  going  farther,  that  the 
case  looks  very  well  for  John.  But  even  the  sup- 
posed errors  can  by  no  means  be  certainly  proved 
to  be  such.  Let  us  examine  those  which  are  held  to 
be  the.  surest.  According  to  chap.  i.  28,  John  bap- 
tized in  Bethany,  on  the  farther  side  of  the  Jordan. 
The  text  is  uncertain:  many  read,  as  our  Ger- 
man Bible  has  it,  Bethabara.  Suppose  we  take 
Bethany  as  the  correct  reading.  Then,  it  is  said, 
the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel  did  not  know  where 


102  THE  GOSPELS. 

Bethany  lay :  he  thought  it  was  on  the  farther  side 
of  the  Jordan.  Indeed!  But  we  see  elsewhere 
that  he  knew  very  well  that  Bethany  lay  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Jerusalem.  Did  he,  therefore, 
think  that  Jerusalem  was  also  on  the  farther  side 
of  the  Jordan  ?  That  is  utterly  inconceivable. 
Baur  therefore  supposes  that  he  invented  a  second 
Bethany.  This  is  improbable;  for  on  the  ground 
that  the  author  was  not  John,  and  wished  to  pass 
for  John,  he  would  have  kept  as  strictly  as  possible 
within  the  real  localities.  The  simplest  solution  is 
to  suppose  that  there  were  two  places  of  the  same 
name.  Origen  says  there  is  no  Bethany  on  the 
farther  side  of  the  Jordan ;  but  such  great  changes 
had  taken  place  in  the  land  of  the  Jews  during  the 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Origen,  that  one 
of  these  places  might  have  entirely  disappeared :  for 
nothing  necessitates  the  theory  of  a  great  town,  or 
even  a  village  ;  and  we  know  that  John  the  Baptist 
rather  avoided  the  larger  places.  Another  error  is 
said  to  be  found  in  the  conversation  of  Jesus  with 
the  Samaritan  woman.  The  place  in  whose  vicinity 
Jacob's  well  lay  is  called  Sychar  by  the  evangelist, 
whereas  its  name  is  given  elsewhere  as  Sychem. 
Of  this  he  is  again  supposed  to  be  ignorant.  But  he 
describes  the  place  exactly  in  other  respects.  The 
well  lay  near  the  town,  according  to  his  account ; 
but  Sychem,  the  present  Nablus,  is  rhore  than  half 
a  league  distant  from  the  well.  Consequently  this 
cannot  be  the  place  indicated ;  and  there  is  not  the 
least  improbability  in  supposing  that  there  was  an- 
other place  in  the  vicinity  named  Sychar. 


THE  GOSPELS.  103 

It  is  about  the  same  with  the  historical  errors.  It 
is  said  that  the  evangelist  represents  the  relations 
between  the  Jews  and  Samaritans  as  far  too  hostile. 
The  Jewish  tradition  in  the  Talmud  describes  it  as 
still  more  hostile.  The  evangelist  is  said  to  have 
thought  that  the  Jewish  high-priest  was  chosen 
every  year,  like  the  Roman  consuls  ;  for  he  says  of 
Caiaphas,  "being  high-priest  that  year."  That 
would  certainly  be  a  great  error,  —  so  great  that  it 
can  hardly,  or  rather  cannot,  be  understood  of  one  so 
well  versed  in  the  Old  Testament  as  the  evangelist 
evidently  is,  and  who  makes  such  frequent  use  of  it. 
The  phrase  "  being  high-priest  that  year,"  is  ex- 
plained by  the  consideration,  that  John  uses  it 
when  he  speaks  of  the  malevolent  prophecy  of  Caia- 
phas. He  thereby  calls  attention  to  the  fact,  that 
Caiaphas  was  high-priest  that  very  year,  —  the 
memorable  year  of  the  Lord's  death. 

All  of  these  pretended  errors  are  found  only  be- 
cause they  are  sought  for. 

No  more  valid  is  the  objection,  that  the  character 
of  the  Gospel  does  not  agree  with  the  character  of 
John  as  we  meet  him  elsewhere.  It  is  said  that  the 
"  son  of  thunder,"  as  he  is  called  in  the  Gospel  of 
Mark,  could  not  have  written  this  Epistle  and  this 
Gospel,  in  which  love  alone  is  preached ;  and  that  the 
large-heartedness,  which  appears  in  the  fourth  Gos- 
pel free  from  all  Judaism,  is  inconsistent  with  the 
narrow-minded  Judaism  of  John.  It  is  true  that 
John  was  a  son  of  thunder ;  but  cannot  a  son  of 
thunder  become,  by  the  power  of  grace,  a  disciple 


104  THE  GOSPELS. 

and  preacher  of  love  ?  At  all  events,  the  Church 
of  Asia  Minor  has  preserved  such  a  recollection  of 
John,  which  is  shown  by  the  familiar  story,  that,  in 
his  very  old  age,  John  used  to  say  to  the  people  in 
the  Church  nothing  but  the  constantly  repeated 
counsel,  "  Little  children,  love  one  another."  The 
idea  that  he  was  a  bigoted  Judaist  is  a  mere  fancy 
of  the  Tiibingen  school,  which  also  pretends  that  at 
Ephesus  he  destroyed  the  fruits  of  Paul's  previous 
ministry.  That  is  another  thing  which  the  mem- 
ory of  the  Church  of  Asia  Minor  has  not  preserved. 
This  Church  regards  the  two  Apostles  Paul  and  John 
as  its  pillars,  and  has  no  misgivings  of  any  opposi- 
tion between  them. 

We  now  come  to  the  chief  of  all  the  objections 
that  are  urged  against  the  genuineness  of  the  Gos- 
pel, that  upon  which  our  opponents  lay  the  most 
stress,  and  which,  if  it  were  valid,  would  alone  suf- 
fice to  prove  that  the  Gospel  was  not  genuine.  It  is 
said  that  the  fourth  Gospel  gives  an  entirely  diiSer^ 
ent  representation  of  Christ  from  the  first  three ;  and 
so  surely  as  theirs  is  true,  this  is  false.  One  can 
but  wish  that  they  who  argue  in  this  way  would 
first  admit  the  picture  of  Christ  given  in  the  first 
three  Gospels  to  be  truly  historical :  I  am  sure  that 
they  would  then  come  soon  enough  to  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  fourth  Gospel. 

A  simple  comparison  only  is  needed  to  see,  that 
the  fourth  Gospel,  while  coinciding  in  many  parts 
with  the  first  three,  contains  also  much  that  is 
peculiar  to  itself;   recounts  miracles,  repeats  dis- 


THE  GOSPELS.  105 

courses  of  the  Lord,  which  are  not  in  the  other 
Gospels.  This,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  one  of  the 
strongest  proofs  of  its  genuineness  ;  for  an  eye-wit- 
ness speaks  here  who  can  adduce  a  deal  of  new 
material  from  his  own  recollection.  Let  us  reverse 
the  question,  and  ask.  If  it  is  not  an  eye-witness 
who  speaks,  but  some  unknown  person  of  the  second 
century,  whence  did  this  person  get  the  abundant 
material  ?  From  oral  tradition  ?  This  was  very 
scanty  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. From  the  growth  of  legend  ?  Where  in  the 
second  century  is  there  the  slightest  trace  that  le- 
gend formed  such  stories  as  the  marriage  at  Cana 
and  the  raising  of  Lazarus  ?  There  remains  nothing 
else  to  be  said,  except  —  he  invented  it  all.  Baur 
did  not  hesitate  to  assert  this,  and  Strauss  agreed 
with  him.  They  suppose  that  the  author  of  the 
fourth  Gospel  spun  these  peculiar  tales  of  his  out 
of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  and  perhaps  some  other 
sources  of  information.  For  instance,  he  read  in 
the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  poor  Lazarus,  that 
the  rich  man  begged  that  Lazarus  should  be  sent 
back  to  the  earth,  to  preach  repentance  to  his  breth- 
ren. This  suggested  to  him  the  idea  of  making 
Lazarus  actually  come  back  out  of  the  grave.  With 
this  he  united  Luke's  story  of  the  two  sisters  of 
Bethany,  made  Lazarus  the  brother  of  Martha  and 
Mary,  and  thus  formed  the  narrative  of  the  raising 
of  Lazarus.  That  is  indeed  fine-spun.  I  do  not 
know  which  we  should  most  wonder  at, — the  fer-. 
tility  of  the  pseudo-John,  who  makes  such  a  nar- 


106  THE  GOSPELS. 

rative  out  of  single  bits  of  information;  or  the 
penetration  of  the  critics,  who  now,  after  eighteen 
hundred  years,  can  find  the  traces  of  the  origin  of 
this  narrative ;  or,  finally,  the  credulity  of  those  who 
believe  this  to  be  possible. 

The  author  who  had  the  ability  to  write  such  a 
Gospel  as  a  fictitious  narrative  must  certainly  have 
been  a  very  remarkable  man.  Who  is  there  in 
the  whole  second  century  that  even  remotely  ap- 
proximates to  him ;  that  can  be  mentioned  in  the 
same  breath  with  him  ?  Search  the  second  cen- 
tury through  and  through,  and  how  far,  how  in- 
finitely far,  does  every  thing  stand  below  this !  The 
writings  of  Justin,  or  whatever  else  that  is  excellent 
in  our  inheritance  from  this  period ;  the  beautiful 
letter  to  Diognetus,  a  pearl  of  the  ancient  Christian 
literature, — there  is  still  a  deep  gulf  which  separates 
them  all  from  the  fourth  Gospel.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
said  that  all  the  difficulties  which  have  been  placed, 
with  care  and  ingenuity,  in  the  way  of  the  genuine- 
ness, are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  diffi- 
culties over  which  one  stumbles  who  denies  the 
genuineness,  and  is  obliged  to  bring  down  the 
fourth  Gospel  into  the  second  century,  and  assign 
a  place  for  it  there ;  for  it  must  have  originated  at 
some  time.  In  this  connection  it  will  suffice  to 
quote  the  opinion  of  a  man  who  will  be  admitted  to 
be  impartial,  —  Professor  Eitschl,  of  Gottingen.  He 
declares  that  he  holds  this  Gospel  to  be  genuine 
with  the  rest,  for  this  reason,  "  because  the  denial 
of  its  genuineness  involves  much  greater  difficul- 
ties than  the  acknowledgment  of  it." 


THE  GOSPELS.  107 

Add  to  this  the  direct  impression  which  the  Gos- 
pel makes  upon  every  impartial  reader.  It  is  the 
impression  of  genuine  history.  The  clearness  of 
the  narrative ;  the  accurate  references  to  time  and 
place, —  often  in  apparently  insignificant  matters, 
and  evidently  made  unintentionally  from  the  live- 
liness of  the  writer's  own  recollection;  the  dis- 
tinct delineation  of  the  different  characters,  —  for 
instance,  of  Mary  and  Martha,  of  the  individual  dis- 
ciples, of  Pilate  and  others,  who,  though  sketched 
with  but  few  lines,  appear  so  natural  and  life-like, 
—  all  this  constantly  impresses  upon  men  of  the 
most  diverse  tendencies,  upon  such  men  as  Hase 
and  Ewald,  who  are  any  thing  but  uncritical,  the 
conviction, — This  is  history,  and  not  fiction.  Even 
Schenkel  cannot  avoid  this  impression,  and  sees 
that  he  is  obliged  to  refer  at  least  a  part  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  Gospel  to  John.  But  every  division, 
in  whatever  way  attempted,  is  arbitrary.  The  whole 
Gospel  bears  one  stamp,  and  its  close-locked  unity 
confounds  every  attempt  at  division.* 

We  may  now  return  to  the  question  which  we 
passed  over,  —  the  question  concerning  the  relation 
of  the  fourth  Gospel  to  the  first  three.  There  is 
certainly  a  difference  between  them,  —  a  difference 
not  only  in  the  choice  of  material,  but  also  in  the 
mode  of  representation ;  in  the  coloring,  as  it  were, 
of  the  picture.  Difference,  however,  is  not  neces- 
sarily contradiction.  If  the  life  of  any  remarkable 
man  is  full  enough  to  be  considered  and  represented 

*  See  Note  VI.  p.  157. 


108  THE  GOSPELS. 

by  different  biographers  from  different  points  of 
view,  how  much  more  the  infinitely  abundant  ful- 
ness of  the  life  of  Jesus ! 

The  more  closely  we  look,  the  more  points  of  co- 
incidence we  find  between  the  Synoptic  writers  and 
John.  Let  us  look  at  the  incidents.  John  relates 
little  concerning  the  residence  of  Jesus  in  Galilee  ; 
but  he  knows  that  Jesus  stayed  there  repeatedly, 
for  considerable  lengths  of  time.  The  Synoptic 
writers  tell  nothing  about  an  earlier  ministry  of 
Jesus  in  Judaea  and  Jerusalem ;  but  they  know 
of  his  saying,  "  0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem !  .  .  ,  how 
often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together, 
even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens !  " —  a  saying 
which  seems  to  imply  a  more  frequent  residence  in 
Jerusalem.  The  Synoptic  writers  do  not  narrate  the 
raising  of  Lazarus  ;  but  Luke  knows  of  the  two  sis- 
ters of  Bethany,  and  their  character,  sketched  as  it 
is  with  but  few  lines,  agrees  surprisingly  with  what 
John  tells  of  their  conduct  at  the  death  of  their 
brother.  Let  us  look  at  the  discourses.  How 
many  sayings  in  John  call  to  mind  the  popular 
laconic  speech  of  Jesus  in  the  Synoptics !  Consider 
also  the  saying  repeated  by  Matthew  (Matt.  xi.  27  ; 
compare  Luke  x.  22),  "  All  things  are  delivered 
unto  me  of  my  Father ;  and  no  man  knoweth  the 
Son,  but  the  Father ;  neither  knoweth  any  man 
the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the 
Son  will  reveal  him."  Has  not  this  saying,  if  we 
may  so  express  it,  an  entirely  Johannine  coloring  ? 
K  it  were  in  John,  instead  of  being  in  the  Synoptics, 


THE  GOSPELS.  109 

this  very  saying  would  doubtless  be  used  to  prove  to 
us  that  Jesus  there  speaks  differently  from  here. 

We  can  take  another  step.  The  Synoptics  and 
John  not  only  coincide  in  many  ways,  —  they  supple- 
ment each  other.  The  fourth  Gospel  presupposes 
the  three  first ;  presupposes  at  least  the  information 
which  they  contain.  It  may  be  urged  that  whatever 
is  wanting  in  John  was  unknown  to  him.  He  does 
not  recount  the  institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper: 
was  he  ignorant  of  that  ?  It  is  true  the  Synoptics 
tell  mostly  about  the  Lord's  ministry  in  Galilee : 
John  tells  about  that  in  Judaga  and  Jerusalem.  But 
do  these  accounts  mutually  exclude  each  other? 
The  catastrophe  of  Jesus'  life  cannot  be  understood, 
on  the  one  side,  without  a  longer  ministry  in  Gali- 
lee :  on  the  other  side,  without  a  more  frequent  resi- 
dence in  Jerusalem.  It  is  true  the  discourses  of 
the  Lord  in  the  Synoptics  have  a  different  character 
from  those  in  John.  There  they  are  popular,  clear 
and  transparent,  parabolic,  fall  of  telling  points : 
here  they  are  profound,  contemplative,  mystical  and 
hard  to  understand ;  often  spoken  as  if  only  for  a 
narrow  circle.  But  does  one  exclude  the  other? 
Cannot  he  who  spoke  as  in  the  Synoptics,  also  speak 
as  in  John  ?  Was  the  Lord  so  one-sided  or  so  poor, 
that,  when  circumstances  and  occasions  required  it, 
he  could  not  command  a  different  mode  of  speech  ? 
The  Lord's  ministry  is  plainly  incomprehensible 
without  both  kinds  of  speech.  In  John,  as  well  as 
in  the  Synoptics,  we  find  the  Lord  surrounded  by 
great  multitudes  of  people;  and  nothing  is  more 


110  THE  GOSPELS. 

certain  tlian  that  he  made  a  deep  impression  upon 
the  mass  of  the  people.  How  did  he  do  this  ?  How 
could  he  have  won  those  multitudes  and  bound  them 
to  himself  if  he  had  only  spoken  as  in  John ;  and 
not  also  popularly,  as  in  the  Synoptics  ?  On  the 
other  hand,  whence  comes  all  the  fulness  of  knowl- 
edge that  lived  in  the  apostolic  Church;  whence 
comes  the  depth  of  the  idea  of  the  divine  in  Jesus, 
—  if  the  Lord  did  not  also  speak  as  in  John  ?  It 
is  true  —  not  to  pass  by  another  difference,  which  is 
so  much  misused  —  that  the  Synoptics  set  forth 
rather  the  human  element  in  Jesus :  they  tell  us 
of  the  Son  of  man,  the  son  of  David.  John,  on  the 
other  hand,  sets  forth  the  divine  element  more  pro- 
minently, and  shows  us  the  Son  of  God,  the  Only- 
begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and  truth.  But 
it  is  not  true  that  the  divine  element  is  wanting  in 
the  Synoptics,  or  the  human  element  in  John.  The 
Son  of  man  in  the  first  three  Gospels  is  also  the  Son 
of  God,  to  whom  all  power  is  given  in  heaven  and 
in  earth  ;  and  the  Son  of  God  in  John  is  also  a  real 
man,  who  goes  to  the  wedding,  who  makes  friendly 
visits  at  the  house  in  Bethany,  who  weeps  at  the 
grave  of  Lazarus  :  indeed,  in  hardly  any  other  Gos- 
pel do  we  feel  the  human  heart  of  Jesus  beat  as  we 
do  in  John. 

In  all  these  ways  the  Synoptics  and  John  supple- 
ment each  other ;  and  we  say  with  confidence  still 
more,  they  require  one  another.  If  we  had  only  the 
first  three  Gospels,  or  only  the  fourth  Gospel,  in 
either  case  we  should  get  only  an  imperfect  idea  of 


THE   GOSPELS.  Ill 

the  Lord.  Consider  for  a  moment :  if  we  possessed 
only  the  Gospel  of  John,  we  should  have  no  clear 
view  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  We  should  have  accounts 
of  special,  great  deeds ;  but  no  picture  of  his  daily 
life  and  ministry  among  the  people.  We  should 
have  a  sublime  portrait  of  our  Lord ;  but  we  cannot  ^ 
conceal  from  our  minds  the  fact,  that  this  portrait 
lacks  distinct  outlines.  It  would  not  want  depth, 
but  it  would  want  clearness.  Consider  the  opposite 
case  :  if  we  possessed  only  the  first  three  Gospels, 
we  should  unquestionably  have  a  very  natural,  life- 
like picture  of  the  Lord.  But  this  would  be  wanting 
not  only  in  such  external  things  as  several  references 
to  time  and  place  ;  it  would  be  wanting  not  only  in. 
many  of  the  greatest  events  of  his  life  :  it  would  also 
want,  as  Schenkel  correctly  observes,  the  unfathom- 
able depth  and  inaccessible  height.*  We  should 
have  to  surmise,  instead  of  beholding,  the  greatness 
of  Jesus. 

Permit  me  to  add  to  these  considerations  a  word 
concerning  the  general  relation  of  the  four  Gospels 
to  one  another.  Part  of  the  tactics  of  our  opponents 
consists  in  trying  to  find  as  many  contradictions  as 
they  can  between  the  Gospels,  and  thereby  to  prove 
their  untrustworthiness.  They  proceed  as  if  the 
Gospels  were  formal  legal  records  concerning  the 
life  of  Jesus,  they  subject  them  to  a  sort  of  criminal 
trial ;  and  every  contradiction  which  they  can  bring 
out  by  cross-examination  is  made  to  exhibit  the 
untrustworthiness  of  one,  and  consequently,  at  last, 

*  Schenkel's  Char.,  S.  25  (Furness's  Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  46). 


112  THE  GOSPELS. 

of  all  four.     But  they  proceed  from  a  totally  false 
idea. 

,     I  will  try  to  illustrate  my  meaning.     There  is  a 

^  great  difference  between  a  photograph  and  a  paint- 
ing.    A  photograph  is  merely  a  copy  of  reality  made 

'  by  a  lifeless  machine,  and  therefore  in  a  certain 
sense  it  is  itself  dead.  A  painting  is  a  living  repro- 
duction :  the  picture  has  come  from  the  artist ;  he 
took  it  to  himself,  he  worked  it  out  in  his  own  mind, 
and  gave  us  what  he  saw.  Four  photographs  of  a 
person  must  be  exactly  alike,  to  the  most  minute 
details :  if  one  differs  from  the  others,  it  is  therefore 
false.  But  fancy  four  portraits  of  a  person  painted 
by  four  different  artists :  we  shall  then  have  four 
pictures,  of  which  no  one  agrees  with  another  in 
every  line ;  of  which  one  brings  out  one  side,  an- 
other another  side,  of  the  person ;  and  still  all  four 
are  genuine  and  true  likenesses  of  the  same  person. 
Yes:  all  four  together  are  necessary  to  make  the 

\  only  complete  picture. 

I  am  aware  that  this  illustration  is  not  in  all 
respects  perfect :  it  must  suffer  the  common  failing 
of  all  illustrations ;  but  I  think  it  will  make  my 
meaning  clear.  The  Gospels  are  not  four  photo- 
graphs :  if  they  were,  then  they  who  think  they  can 
prove  their  unauthenticity  and  unhistorical  charac- 
ter from  every  varying  line,  would  be  right.  They 
are  rather  four  living  reproductions  of  the  image  of 
Jesus.  No  lifeless  machine  has  given  us  a  copy 
of  Jesus;  but  living  men  have  told  us  what  they 
heard  and  saw  of  the  Word  of  life.     These  men  dif- 


THE  GOSPELS.  113 

fer  in  tlieir  individual  characters;  and  though  the 
Holy  Spirit,  who  influenced  them,  purified  their  indi- 
viduality, he  by  no  means  suppressed  it.  Matthew 
remained  Matthew ;  and  John,  John.  The  image  of 
the  Lord  was  reflected  in  each  one  according  to  his 
peculiar  character ;  and  since  no  man  is  able  to  take 
and  give  the  whole  fulness  of  the  life  that  is  in  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Providence  that  rules  the  Church  gave 
her,  not  one  Gospel,  but  four;  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly  with  the  ancient  Church,  One  Gospel  in  a 
fom-fold  form. 

The  Church  needed  for  her  life  a  genuine  picture 
of  her  Lord.  Without  it  she  could  have  neither 
arisen  nor  stood  fast.  To  deny  that  she  had  and 
still  has  such  a  picture  is  simply  to  deny  Christian- 
ity. In  the  apostolic  times  she  possessed  such  a 
picture,  in  the  general  oral  tradition,  and  in  the 
chosen,  personal  witnesses  who  had  gone  in  and  out 
with  Jesus.  If  the  Church  was  to  stand,  care  had 
to  be  taken  to  preserve  what  she  possessed  in  the 
apostolic  times ;  and  this  possession  we  have  in  our 
four  Gospels.  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  there  is  the 
true  account  of  the  oral  tradition :  in  them  we  have 
what  was  then  told  among  the  people,  what  the 
evangelists  related  on  their  missionary  journeys  and 
on  the  occasions  of  religious  service  in  the  Church. 
It  is  in  its  simplest  form  in  Mark  ;  in  Matthew,  the 
Lord's  discourses  are  especially  prominent;  while 
Luke  makes  the  transition  from  evangelist  to  histo- 
rian. His  task  is  to  compile,  before  the  oral  tradi- 
tion dies  out  with  the  lapse  of  time.     Since  the 

8 


114  THE  GOSPELS. 

apostolic  Church  consisted  of  two  great  parts,  com- 
prising Christians  from  the  Jews,  and  Christians 
from  the  Gentiles  ;  since  one  who  had .  been  a  Jew 
and  one  who  had  been  a  Gentile  naturally  took  differ- 
ent views  of  Clmst,  —  this  difference  appears  in  our 
Gospels.  The  Gospel  of  Matthew  represents  Christ 
as  he  appeared  to  a  Jewish  Christian,  who  saw,  above 
all  else  in  Jesus,  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies 
of  the  Old  Testament ;  the  Gospel  of  Luke,  on  the 
other  side,  represents  him,  according  to  the  reflec- 
tion of  his  image  in  the  mind  of  a  Gentile  Christian, 
as  the  second  Adam  :  so  that  we  may  have  the  like- 
ness of  him  who  should  be  both  the  light  of  the 
Gentiles  and  the  glory  of  Israel.  To  all  this  is 
added  the  fourth  Gospel,  not  a  record  of  tradition, 
but  the  work  of  one  man,  —  of  that  one  of  the  dis- 
ciples who  leaned  on  the  Lord's  breast,  who  had 
looked  deepest  into  the  deeps  of  his  nature,  and 
therefore  was  able  to  present  his  image  as  the  image 
of  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  whose  glory  he  had 
beheld. 

The  possession  of  the  One  Gospel  in  its  fourfold 
form  imposes  upon  the  Church  the  task  of  knowing 
the  four  portraits,  which  are  but  one,  as  one,  in 
order  to  gain  the  only  full  and  complete  idea  of  her 
Lord.  Shall  I  say  that  this  task  has  been  fulfilled  ? 
Both  no  and  yes.  No :  it  is  a  task,  in  the  fulfilment 
of  which  the  Church  has  to  labor,  not  in  her  science 
alone,  but  in  her  whole  life,  on  and  on,  to  know 
ever  more  fully  the  riches  of  the  grace  and  life  that 
is  in  Christ  Jesus.     This  task  is  not  to  be  accom- 


THE  GOSPELS.  115 

plished  by  counting  the  features  of  his  portrait ;  by 
a  mere  book-account  of  his  sayings  and  doings.  This 
would  not  be  sufficient  for  the  likeness  of  an  ordi- 
nary man,  least  of  all  for  the  image  of  Christ.  It  is 
rather  a  moral  task ;  for  they  alone  can  know  him 
who  open  their  hearts  to  him,  and  receive  his  life 
in  themselves :  and  only  in  the  measure  in  which 
his  life  pours  itself  into  his  Church,  and  takes  defi- 
nite form  within  her,  —  only  in  that  measure  is  the 
task  to  be  fulfilled. 

And  yet.  Yes.  This  task  is  fulfilled  daily  by 
every  simple  Christian  soul,  who,  without  learning 
and  science,  reads  the  Gospels  in  faith,  and  sees  in 
all  four  the  same  original  hkeness  of  Him  who  is  its 
life,  and  has  taken  form  within  it ;  the  genuine  his- 
torical picture  of  Him  who  dwelt  and  worked  among 
us, — an  historical  person,  and  yet  exalted  above  all 
time ;  the  same  yesterday  and  to-day  and  for  ever. 


FOURTH  DISCOUESE. 

THE  MIRACLES. 


TN  our  discussion,  a  week  ago,  concerning  the 
-^  trustworthiness  of  the  Gospels,  the  question  of 
miracles  was  excepted.  We  reached  the  conclusion, 
that  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  —  that  is  to 
say,  the  Gospels  —  contain  trustworthy  information 
about  the  life  of  Jesus,  by  assuming  for  the  moment 
that  the  occmTcnce  of  miraculous  stories  in  them 
does  not  show  them  to  be  untrustworthy.  We 
made  provisionally  the  presumption  that  there  were 
miracles.  To-day  we  have  to  discuss  whether  this 
presumption  was  correct,  —  the  question  of  miracles. 
We  thus  approach  the  burning  question  of  the 
present,  as  I  have  already  characterized  it  at  the 
beginning  of  my  first  discourse.  Mracles  are  to  so 
many  the  great  hindrance,  the  stumbling-block  over 
which  they  cannot  pass !  If  there  were  only  no 
miracles,  they  say,  we  would  accept  the  rest  of  the 
contents  of  the  Bible ;  but  to  believe  in  miracles  is 
no  longer  possible  in  the  present  position  of  the  sci- 
ences, —  that  is  to  say,  the  natural  sciences.     They 


THE  MIRACLES.  117 

could  more  easily  give  up  all  faith,  than  bring  them- 
selves to  believe  in  miracles. 

This  difficulty  cannot  be  avoided.  Miracles  can- 
not be  got  out  of  the  Bible,  either  by  natural  ex- 
planation or  by  figurative  interpretation.  Nor  is  it 
of  any  use  to  abate  something  here  and  there,  to  set 
aside  this  or  that  miracle  entirely,  or  to  conceive  itis 
miraculous  quality  to  be  less  miraculous  ;  for  the 
least  miracle  is  as  incomprehensible  as  the  greatest. 
In  vain,  also,  is  the  attempt  to  disjoin  the  miracles ; 
to  separate  them  as  debris,  and  to  hold  fast  only 
what  remains :  for  all  Christianity  rests  fundamen- 
tally upon  the  miracle  of  the  appearance  of  Christ ; 
and  whoever  rejects  miracles  must  also  reject  the 
fundamental  fact  of  Christianity,  the  chief  article  of 
the  Christian  faith.  /  Nor  is  this  all :  he  must  reject 
all  revelation,  for  revelation  is  miracle,!  And  if  he 
then,  perhaps,  comforts  himself  with  the  thought 
that  natural  religion  still  remains,  this  consolation 
also  rests  fundamentally  upon  illusion.  (  To  speak 
plainly,  whoever  denies  miracles  has  no  God.  He 
may  always,  if  only  from  an  instinctive  fear  of  athe- 
ism, hold  fast  that  there  is  a  God  ^but  it  is  a  dead 
word,  a  name  ;  for  this  God  stands  in  no  living  rela- 
tion to  the  world. '.  Man  has  nothing  to  hope  or  to 
fear  from  him.  Prayer  is  no  longer  possible  ;  for 
all  praying  depends  upon  the  conviction,  that  God 
grants  what  we  ask.  If  God  performs  no  miracles, 
and  can  perform  none ;  or,  in  other  words,  if  he  no 
longer  acts  in  this  world,  if  he  is  shut  out  of  it,  if 
the  order  of  nature  does  not  admit  him,  if  every 


118  THE   MIRACLES. 

thing  that  takes  place  is  nothing  but  an  unbroken 
chain  of  final  causes  and  effects,  —  then  prayer 
depends  upon  an  illusion  ;  and  the  illusion  must 
sooner  or  later  become  evident  to  man,  shrink  as 
he  may  from  this  conclusion  of  his  reason. 

I  would  therefore  ask  you  not  to  shrink  from  a 
clear  perception  of  the  whole  scope  and  bearing  of 
this  question  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Strauss 
is  perfectly  right  in  treating  the  question  of  miracles 
as  the  question  of  the  existence  of  Christianity. 
He  who  does  away  with  miracles  not  only  banishes, 
as  Strauss  says,  the  priests  from  the  Church:  he 
banishes  the  Church  itself,  and  Christianity,  and 
the  living  God  besides. )  I  do  not  say  this  to  instil 
fear  into  your  minds,  to  hold  you  fast  to  the  so- 
called  illusion  of  miracles,  through  fear  of  the 
overthrow  of  all  that  we  have  been  used  to  from 
childhood.  Of  what  use  would  that  be  ?  It  would 
have  no  meaning  and  no  blessing  for  our  life.  If 
it  is  an  illusion,  then  get  rid  of  it,  without  regard 
to  what  falls  with  it.  That  would  only  be  doing 
good,  though  it  should  break  many  an  anxious  heart. 
I  say  it  only  that  you  may  see  what  is  at  stake  ;  and 
to  warn  you  of  the  fatal  and  essentially  false  am- 
bigTiity  of  those  who  think  that  they  can  sacrifice 
miracles  to  the  pretended  demands  of  science,  with- 
out also  sacrificing  Christianity  itself. 

Miracles, — what  is  a  miracle?  Let  us  first  de- 
termine the  idea  of  a  miracle ;  for  all  that  we  call 
miraculous  is  not  miraoulous  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  here  speak  of  miracles.     We  are  accustomed  to 


THE  MIRACLES.  119 


use  the  word  "  miracle  "  in  a  very  wide  sense  ;  and 
it  is  therefore  necessary  to  make  abstractions  from 
all  sides,  that  we  may  come  to  the  miracle  in  tlie 
proper  sense. 

When  the  seed  springs  up  in  the  field,  and  the 
plant  grows  from  the  grain,  we  call  it  a  miracle. 
We  speak  of  the  miracles  of  God  in  nature.  It  is 
not  to  our  purpose  to  inquire  how  correct  this  mode 
of  speech  is :  it  is  clear  that  these  are  not  miracles 
in  the  proper  sense,  for  they  are  the  effects  of  mere 
natural  causes.  The  germination  and  growth  of  the 
seed  proceeds  from  natural  forces,  according  to  the 
inherent  laws  of  nature,  without  the  intervention 
of  a  supernatural  cause.  It  makes  no  difference 
whether  the  forces  and  laws  of  nature  that  rule 
there  are  known  or  still  unknown  to  us.  When 
things  take  place  in  nature,  when  effects  are  pro- 
duced which  cannot  be  explained  by  the  forces  and 
laws  that  are  known  to  us,  we  may  say  that  it  is  a 
miracle  to  us  ;  but  it  is  not  a  miracle  in  itself.  So 
soon  as  farther  investigation  brings  those  forces 
and  laws  within  our  knowledge,  the  miracle  ceases 
to  be  a  miracle.  In  such  cases,  therefore,  we  do 
not  have  to  deal,  properly  speaking,  with  miracles. 

It  is  different  with  events  which  are  also  only 
the  result  of  natural  causes,  but  in  which  we  must 
recognize  the  hand  of  God,  the  special  guidance  and 
providence  of  God,  because  these  natural  causes  ex- 
actly coincide  to  produce  just  this  result  and  no 
other.  In  such  cases  we  can  really  speak  of  mir- 
acles.    Let  me  give  as  an  example  a  story  from  the 


120  THE  MIRACLES. 

life  of  A.  H.  rra,nke,  the  founder  of  the  Orphan 
Asylum  at  Halle.  One  day,  during  the  building  of 
the  Asylum,  his  accomitant  came  to  him  and  asked 
for  a  certain  sum  of  money  which  had  to  be  paid  at 
once.  Franke's  purse  was  empty.  He  went  into 
his  chamber  and  prayed  to  God ;  and  lo !  just  as 
he  came  out  of  his  chamber,  a  letter  was  brought 
to  him  containmg  the  required  sum.  Here  we 
have  mere  final  causes ;  but  in  their  coincidence 
with  the  result,  that  the  money  was  brought  at  the 
very  instant  the  prayer  was  heard,  there  is  a  dis- 
pensation of  the  most  special  divine  providence,  an 
intervention  by  God,  who  does  not  provide  the 
money  in  a  supernatural  way,  but  directs  every 
thing  so  that  the  money  is  at  hand  the  moment 
Franke's  prayer  is  granted.  This  is  an  intervention 
of  God,  an  actual  miracle  ;  but  still  not  a  miracle 
in  the  strictest  sense. 

A  miracle  in  the  strictest  sense  exists  only  when 
things  occur  which  have  their  effective  cause,  not  in 
the  forces  of  earthly  nature,  but  in  a  direct  inter- 
vention of  divine  power,  of  God  himself, '  when 
God  acts  without  the  medium  of  created  means?) 
For  instance^  when  the  Lord  turns  water  into  wine) 
multiplies  the  loaves  in  the  wilderness,  raises  a  man 
from  the  dead,  —  these  are  miracles  in  the  strictest 
and  most  correct  sense  of  the  term ;  and  it  is  with 
these  especially  that  we  now  have  to  deal. 

It  is  necessary  to  make  still  another  distinction 
between  the  miracles  of  grace  which  God  works  in 
a  human  heart,  and  the  miracles  of  power  which 


THE   MIRACLES.  121 

take  place  in  nature.  Conversion,  the  regeneration 
of  aWan,  is  also  a  miracle  performed  by  God ;  but 
these  miracles  of  grace,  though  rightly  called  by 
Luthii'  the  head  and  chief  of  miracles,  must,  in 
the  fiitet  place  at  least,  be  left  out  of  our  considera- 
tion. iWe  shall  return  to  them  afterwards  ;  but  first 
of  all  ye  have  to  deal,  not  with  them,  but  with  the 
so-callea  miracles  of  power,  or  miracles  of  nature. 
The  question  is,  whether  there  are  such  miracles  as 
the  instdiices  already  given,  events  which  God  him- 
self brings  to  pass  without  the  concurrence  of 
created,  n»ediate  causes. 

All  the  arguments  brougTit  against  the  occurrence 
of  miracle^"!  maybe  reduced  to  two, —  one  histori- 
cal arguml^nt ;  and  one  philosophical  argument, 
which  is  btsed  upon  the  reason.  It  is  said,  first, 
the  actual  occurrence  of  miracles  is  not  historically 
demonstrably  ;  and,  second,  it  is  inconceivable,  it 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  reason.  These  arguments 
mutually  supjfort  each  other ;  and  it  is  somewhat 
embarrassing  to  find  out  how  to  take  hold  of  the 
subject.  If  we\try  to  prove  the  miracles  historically, 
it  is  said,  "  AU  miraculous  stories  are  thoroughly 
untrustworthy,  for  miracles  are  inconceivable."  If 
we  take  the  subject  by  the  other  end,  and,  seeking 
its  warrant  in  the  idea,  attempt  to  prove  it  by 
reasoning,  then  it  is  said,  "  What  does  all  that 
avail  ?  Miracles  may  be  conceivable  for  ever ;  but 
their  actual  occurrence  is  not  established,  is  not 
historically  proved." 

The  sulijcct  must  nevertheless  be  taken  by  one 


122  THE   MIRACLES. 

end  or  the  other.  Let  us  begin  with  the  historical 
proof.  This  is  the  most  correct  way ;  for,  instead  of 
inventing  all  kinds  of  conjectures  about  possibility 
and  impossibility,  it  is  unquestionably  better  to 
reason  about  the  facts.  This  is  also  the  way  pointed 
out  by  our  opponents  ;  for  both  Kenan  and  Schenkel 
declare  that  they  do  not  deny  the  possibility  of 
miracles,  but  only  their  actual  occurrence.  "It  is 
not,  therefore,  in  the  name  of  this  or  that  philos- 
ophy," says  Renan,  "  but  in  the  name  of  constant 
experience,  that  we  banish  miracle  from  history. 
We  do  not  say,  '  Miracle  is  impossible  r '  we  say, 
'  There  has  been  hitherto  no  miracle  proved.' "  *  Let 
us  look  and  see  if  there  is  not  some  instance  in 
which  a  miracle  can  be  established  loj  sure  his- 
torical proof. 

At  the  outset  we  must  reject  most  decidedly  the 
demands  which  Renan  makes  for  such  a  proof.  He 
says,  "  Let  a  thaumaturgist  present  himself  to-mor- 
row with  testimony  sufficiently  impoitant  to  merit 
our  attention  ;  let  him  announce  that  he  is  able,  I 
will  suppose,  to  raise  the  dead :  what  would  be 
done  ?  A  commission,  composed  of  physiologists, 
physicians,  chemists,  persons  experienced  in  histori- 
cal criticism,  would  be  appointed.  This  commission 
would  choose  the  corpse,  make  certain  that  death 
was  real,  designate  the  hall  in  which  the  experiment 
should  be  made,  and  regulate  the  whole  system  of 
precautions  necessary  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt. 
If,  under  such  conditions,  the  resurrection  should 

*  Vie  de  J^sus,  p.  xlii.  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  44). 


THE   MIRACLES.  123 

be  performed,  a  probability  almost  equal  to  cer- 
tainty would  be  attained."  *  Then  if  the  thauma- 
turgist  should  repeat  the  experiment  several  times 
upon  other  dead  bodies,  under  other  circumstances, 
before  other  persons,  we  might  regard  a  miracle  as 
proved.  —  If  these  demands  were  just,  we  should  be 
undeniably  and  thoroughly  beaten  ;  for  such  a  com- 
mission of  Parisian  Academicians  never  existed  in 
Judaea,  and  the  Lord's  miracles  also  differed  some- 
what from  such  experiments  made  to  order  before  a 
committee.  But  the  demands  are  wholly  unjust. 
What  would  an  historian  say  if  he  were  required  to 
prove  in  this  manner  the  facts  of  his  history? 
Strike  out  the  whole  history,  no  fact  could  be  so 
proved.  We  regard  the  miracles,  in  the  first  place, 
as  historical  facts ;  and  no  more  can  be  demanded 
of  us  than  to  prove  them,  as  we  prove  every  other 
historical  fact,  by  unsuspected  witnesses,  who  can 
and  will  tell  the  truth.  Whoever  demands  more 
than  a  simple  historical  proof,  lets  it  be  understood 
that  he  occupies  the  standpoint  designated  by  the 
saying  of  Yoltaire,  that  he  would  not  believe  a  mir- 
acle even  if  it  happened  in  the  open  market-place, 
before  his  eyes ;  in  other  words,  that,  once  for  all, 
he  absolutely  will  not  believe  in  miracles. 

To  prove  the  historical  occurrence  of  miracles, 
we  cannot  now  appeal  to  the  Gospels ;  for  we  re- 
member that  we  demonstrated  their  trustworthiness 
only  upon  the  presumption  that  there  were  miracles, 
and  hence  we  cannot  now  prove  miracles  upon  the 

*  Vie  de  J^sus,  p.  xlii.  (Wilbour's  Trans.,  p.  44). 


124  THE  MIRACLES. 

presumption  of  their  trustworthiness.  This  would 
he  arguing  in  a  circle.  Let  us  now  start  again  from 
the  four  uncontested  Epistles  of  Paul,  in  which  we 
have  an  indisputable  historical  document. 

Bj  these  Epistles  it  is  shown  to  be  a  fact,  that  the 
apostle  Paul  was  convinced  that  miracles  took  place 
at  that  time  in  the  Church,  for  he  expressly  men- 
tions (1  Cor.  xii.  9)  among  the  gifts  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  the  gift  of  healing, — of  miraculously  heal- 
ing the  sick.J  He  was  even  sure  that  he  himself 
possessed  the  gift  of  miracles.  He  appeals  to  it 
(2  Cor.  xii.  12)  as  a  sign  of  his  apostleship.  Paul 
there  says,  "  Truly,  the  signs  of  an  apostle  were 
wrought  among  you  in  all  patience,  in  signs  and 
wonders  and  mighty  deeds."  If  you  say  that  this 
conviction  of  the  apostle  had  no  foundation  in  fact, 
that  he  did  not  really  work  miracles,  you  have  only 
this  alternative  left :  you  must  regard  him  either  as 
a  fanatic,  or  as  an  impostor.  Indeed,  the  first  part 
of  the  alternative  is  not  left  you :  it  could  not  hap- 
pen, without  supposing  a  great  moral  defect.  For, 
mark  you,  I  am  speaking  of  miracles  which  Paul 
claims  to  have  performed  himself.  It  is  one  thing 
to  accept  without  criticism  strange  miracles,  and 
another  thing  to  solemnly  appeal  to  one's  own  mira- 
cles. The  latter,  if  the  miracles  have  not  really 
been  wrought,  is  a  sign  of  a  great  lack  of  self-exam- 
ination: it  is  self-conceit  of  the  worst  kind.  To 
believe  such  a  thing  of  Paul,  is  psychologically,  his- 
torically, and  morally  impossible.  I  will  not  speak 
of  the  circumstance,  that  the  apostle  was  not  sur- 


THE  MIRACLES.  125 

rounded  merely  by  devoted  friends,  who  in  their 
enthusiasm  thought  that  for  him  every  thing  was 
possible.  There  in  Corinth  he  had  the  bitterest  en- 
emies ;  and  against  these  very  persons  he  appealed 
with  perfect  composure  and  the  greatest  certainty  to 
the  miracles  which  he  had  performed  in  their  midst. 
It  is  easy  to  say  that  he  deceived  himself;  but  try  for 
a  moment  to  comprehend  the  character  of  Paul,  as  it 
lies  before  us  so  plainly  in  his  Epistles.  A  man 
otherwise  of  the  keenest  understanding,  sober,  true, 
humble  ;  and  in  this  one  point  weak,  deluded,  and, 
what  is  worse,  incredibly  presuming  and  self-con- 
ceited. Is  that  conceivable  ?  Try  also  for  a  moment 
to  comprehend  his  entire  work.  If  you  believe  that 
delusion  and  lying  accomplished  such  great,  and 
not  only  great,  —  such  blessed  things  in  the  world 
(we  ourselves  now,  after  eighteen  hundred  years, 
are  in  the  midst  of  this  blessing  which  the  work  of 
Paul  extended  over  our  part  of  the  world), — if  you 
believe  this,  then  all  I  have  to  say  is,  that  I  do  not 
envy  you  your  view  of  the  world,  and. will  waste 
no  more  words  on  the  subject.  But  if  you  believe, 
as  you  perhaps  regard  the  world  in  other  cases,  that 
delusion  and  lying  have  a  brief  triumph  now  and 
then,  but  at  last  fall  under  the  judgment  of  the  truth, 
then  you  must  admit  that,  in  this  case,  there  can  be 
no  delusion  and  lying,  but  truth,  historical  facts. 

It  is  replied,  perhaps,  "  The  declarations  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  are  too  indefinite  :  he  only  alludes  to 
miracles  in  general ;  no  single  one  is  distinctly 
named  and  told.     Have  you  no  thoroughly  definite 


126  THE  MIRACLES. 

miracle  that  can  be  historically  proved  ? "  I  answer 
confidently,  Yes:  the  greatest  of  all,  —  the  mira- 
cle of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  It  is  plain,  that 
if  we  should  succeed  in  proving  this  to  be  histori- 
cally established,  all  demands  would  be  satisfied.  A 
lively  discussion  has,  therefore,  sprung  up  of  late 
years  about  this  fundamental  fact  of  Christianity. 
Every  power  is  exerted  by  one  side  to  destroy  it,  by 
the  other  to  defend  it. 

Let  us  here  also  start  with  a  fact  which  is  doubted 
by  neither  side,  and  which  cannot  be  reasonably 
doubted, —  I  mean  the  fact  that  the  disciples,  the 
earliest  Christians,  believed,  and  believed  with  the 
fullest  conviction,  that  Jesus,  the  Jesus  who  had 
died,  rose  again  bodily  from  the  dead.  The  whole 
Church  rests  upon  this  belief:  this  behef  is  the 
substance  of  her  preaching;  it  appears  with  most 
complete  certainty  in  all  the  documents  of  the  time. 
This  indeed  does  not  prove  that  the  fact  of  the  res- 
urrection corresponded  to  that  behef :  it  is  possible 
that  the  belief  may  have  existed  without  the  corre- 
sponding reality ;  it  may  have  rested  upon  delusion. 
But,  at  all  events,  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  is  itself  a  fact,  and  a  fact  of  the  greatest  sig- 
nificance for  all  history,  which  cannot  be  passed 
over  without  explanation  by  any  one  who  would 
thoroughly  comprehend  the  history  of  our  race. 
Now,  whoever  refuses  to  interpret  this  fact  simply 
in  this  way,  "  The  disciples  believed  that  Jesus  had 
risen,  because  he  really  had  risen  from  the  dead," 
assumes  the  burden  of  proving  how  this  belief  could 


THE  MIRACLES.  127 

have  originated  and  become  established  without  the 
actual  resurrection.  The  task  is  even  more  defi- 
nite :  the  belief  of  the  disciples  was  not  a  mere  in- 
definite belief,  but  they  believed  that  they  had  seen 
and  heard  Him  who  had  risen  from  the  dead.  This 
is  also  a  fact  which  no  one  can  reasonably  doubt. 
We  have  not  only  the  testimony  of  the  Gospels  for 
it :  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  who 
declares  (1  Cor.  xv.)  that  Jesus,  after  he  had  risen, 
was  seen  by  Cephas,  then  by  the  twelve,  then  by 
more  than  five  hundred  brethren  at  once,  then  by 
James,  afterwards  by  all  the  apostles ;  and  at  last 
he  adds,  that  he  himself  had  seen  him,  referring  to 
the  appearance  near  Damascus. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  pretend 
that  this  belief  that  they  had  seen  him  is  all  that  is 
needed  to  prove  that  they  really  saw  him.  I  only 
say  it  is  a  fact  that  they  believed  that  they  had  seen 
him,  —  a  fact  which  must  be  explained.  It  is  not 
enough  to  say,  It  was  an  illusion.  This  is  no  explana- 
tion ;  for  we  then  ask.  How  was  an  illusion  possible 
in  this  case  ?  And  this  distinctly  states  the  problem 
which  is  to  be  solved  :  namely,  to  show  how  the  dis- 
ciples could  have  come  to  the  belief,  that  they  had 
seen  Him  who  had  risen  from  the  dead. 

I  may  perhaps  assume  that  one  kind  of  explana- 
tion is  exploded,  and  out  of  the  way :  I  mean  the 
view  that  Jesus  was  only  apparently  dead,  that  he 
recovered  from  a  death-like  fainting  spell,  and  that 
hence  the  disciples  believed  that  he  had  risen  from 
the  dead.     This  view  of  the  old  rationalism,  though 


128  THE  MIRACLES. 

it  may  be  found  here  and  there  as  a  relic  of  past 
times,  no  longer  needs  to  be  refuted ;  for,  so  far  as  I 
know,  it  no  longer  has  a  defender.  The  present 
prevailing  view  is,  that  the  belief  of  the  disciples 
was  based  upon  no  objective  facts,  but  merely  upon 
subjective  visions,  internal  sights. 

You  have  all  heard,  of  course,  that  the  occurrence 
of  such  visions  or  hallucinations  is  a  matter  of 
experience.  Persons  see  something,  hear  voices, 
without  the  object  which  they  see  and  the  voice 
which  they  hear  being  really  in  existence.  This  is 
not  hard  to  explain.  When  the  rays  of  light  which 
proceed  from  an  object  outside  of  us  come  in  contact 
with  the  organ  of  sight,  or  when  sounds  meet  the 
organ  of  hearing,  an  excitement  of  the  nerves  is 
caused,  which  is  communicated  to  the  brain,  and 
awakes  in  us  the  idea  representing  the  object  which 
we  see  and  hear.  The  excitement  is  internal ;  but 
we  learn  by  experience  to  think  of  the  object  from 
which  the  excitement  proceeds  as  being  outside  of 
us :  we  see  it  outside  of  us.  This  same  nervous 
excitement  can  occur  simply  internally,  without  any 
rays  of  light  or  any  sounds  coming  from  without, 
—  either  from  an  ill  state  of  health,  or  from  great 
mental  agitation.  The  same  process  then  takes 
place :  the  nervous  excitement  awakes  the  idea 
representing  an  object  or  a  sound;  and,  although 
the  occurrence  is  purely  internal,  the  person  thinks, 
as  usual,  that  the  objects  are  outside  of  him.  He 
sees  an  object,  a  person  who  is  not  there  ;  he  hears 
voices  which  are  not  there.     In  this  way  are  to  be 


THE  MIRACLES.  129 

explained,  for  instance,  the  visions  of  the  Maid  of 
Orleans,  and  the  voices  which  she  heard.  But  we 
need  not  go  so  far  for  instances  of  this  kind :  there 
are  descriptions  in  the  New  Testament  of  undoubted 
visions,  (we  may  add  caused  by  God ;  for  God  uses 
this  means  also).  When  Peter,  before  the  conver- 
sion of  Cornelius  the  centurion,  saw  a  sheet  de- 
scend from  heaven,  containing  clean  and  unclean 
animals  (Acts  x.  9,  et  seq.},  the  sheet  was  not 
really  there,  —  it  was  a  vision. 

Such  a  vision,  it  is  said,  was  the  disciples'  sight 
of  Him  who  had  risen,  —  a  purely  internal  event, 
to  which  nothing  external  corresponded,  but  which 
they,  as  is  so  common  with  visionaries,  were  unable 
to  recognize  as  merely  internal.  They  saw  the  risen 
one,  they  heard  his  voice ;  and  were  naturally,  espe- 
cially since  they  were  uneducated  people,  convinced 
in  good  faith  that  he  was  actually  present,  and 
spoke  to  them.  Tliey  could  not  distinguish  the  vis^ 
ion  from  an  outward  event. 

At  this  point  we  disagree.  It  is  said  that  they 
were  unable  to  distinguish  between  these  things : 
was  Paul  unable  to  do  it  ?  Paul  was  able  in  other 
cases  to  distinguish  between  a  vision  and  real 
sight.  He  tells  (2  Cor.  xii.  1,  et  seq.}  of  the  cele- 
brated vision  in  which  he  was  caught  up  into  the 
third  heaven ;  and  how  distinctly  does  he  describe 
this  occurrence  as  a  vision!  On  the  other,  hand, 
whenever  he  speaks  of  the  appearance  of  the  risen 
Lord  to  him,  he  invarial^ly  speaks  of  it  as  a  simple 
sight.     Besides,  the   entire  context  requires  this ; 

9 


130  THE  MIRACLES. 

for  when  the  Apostle  Paul,  in  order  to  prove  his 
apostolic  worth,  appeals  to  the  fact  that  he  too  had 
seen  the  Lord  (1  Cor.  ix.  1)  as  the  other  apostles 
had,  his  sight  must  have  been  just  such  a  sight  as 
theirs,  —  consequently  a  real,  and  not  a  visionary 
one,  —  or  the  reasoning  would  amount  to  nothing. 
When  he  founds  the  hope  of  our  resurrection  upon 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  it  is  only  possible  in  case 
he  regards  the  appearance  of  the  risen  Lord  as  a 
real  external  event.  There  can  be  no  doubt  upon 
this  point :  Paul  himself,  who  in  other  instances  re- 
cognizes visionary  occurrences,  perceives  no  such 
thing  here.  His  whole  apostolic  consciousness,  his 
conversion,  his  faith,  his  life  and  work,  are  founded 
upon  the  conviction  that  he  had  seen  the  Lord,  not 
merely  in  a  vision,  but  in  reality. 

Paul  was  not  the  only  person  who  saw  him. 
There  were  also  the  eleven  apostles  and  the  five 
hundred  brethren  at  once.  The  fact  is  established, 
—  it  cannot  be  shaken  without  arbitrary  dealing. 
Where  in  the  world  do  you  find  a  vision  which  more 
than  five  hundred  persons  had  at  once  ?  How  could 
the  same  excitement  of  the  senses,  the  same  agita- 
tion of  the  mind,  have  originated  in  five  hundred 
persons  at  the  same  time  ?  Was  it  not  impossible 
by  natural  means  ?  Weisse  extricates  himself  by 
saying  that  it  was  a  vision  caused  by  God.  In  this 
case  I  might  stop  arguing,  for  here  we  have  a  mir- 
acle in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term.  Weisse, 
however,  stands  almost  alone  in  this  view.  The 
aim   of  others   is   to   do   away  with  the  miracle. 


THE  MIRACLES.  131 

Therefore  they  generally  suppose  a  vision  originat- 
ing in  natural  causes.  But  again  I  repeat,  How 
does  it  happen  that  eleven,  or  so  many  as  five  hun- 
dred, persons  have  the  same  vision  ?  Wliere  is  any 
thing  like  it  to  be  found  ? 

Tlie  greatest  difficulty  is  encountered  when  one 
tries  to  clearly  explain  in  his  own  mind  the  origin 
of  this  vision,  and  it  is  fair  to  require  that  this  be 
done.  Visions  do  not  arise  of  themselves :  every 
vision  presupposes  a  corresponding  stato  of  mind. 
The  Maid  of  Orleans  saw  visions,  because  she  kept 
herself  in  an  ever-increasing  excitement  over  the 
ideas  which  were  only  embodied  in  those  sights ; 
she  heard  in  the  voices  only  repetitions  of  her  own 
thoughts.  Was  it  so  with  the  disciples  ?  Did  they 
expect  the  resurrection  ?  Were  they  in  such  an 
exalted  frame  of  mind,  that  such  apparitions  filled 
their  souls  ?  The  direct  opposite  of  this  is  true. 
If  any  fact  is  settled,  this  is  settled,  —  that  the  dis- 
ciples were  utterly  disheartened  after  the  Lord's 
death ;  they  did  not  understand  his  suffering  and 
dying ;  a  suffering  Messiah  was  totally  incompre- 
hensible to  them,  the  cross  destroyed  all  their  hopes. 
Tlieir  state  of  mind  at  that  moment  is  well  denoted 
by  the  remark  of  the  disciples  on  the  way  to  Em- 
maus  :  "  But  we  trusted  that  it  had  been  he  which 
should  have  redeemed  Israel."  Is  it  to  be  supposed 
that  from  this  state  of  mind  they  experienced  the 
vision  ;  that  they  suddenly  beheld  the  crucified  one 
as  the  glorified  one  ?  Strauss  attempts  to  make 
this  conceivable.     He  thinks  the  impression  which 


132  THE   MIRACLES. 

Jesus  made  on  his  disciples  during  his  Hfe  took  a 
more  lively  form  after  his  death.  Thej  applied  the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  to  themselves,  and 
found  therein  that  what  was  said  of  the  eternal  life 
and  the  glory  of  the  Messiah  could  only  be  realized 
by  first  coming  through  death.  Besides,  they  had 
prototypes  in  the  Old  Testament,  especially  Elias, 
who  also  took  his  body  into  the  heavenly  regions. 
But  let  me  ask,  All  this  change  in  three  days  ?  In 
three  days  an  entirely  new  view  of  the  Messiah  and 
his  work  ?  In  three  days  an  entirely  new  interpre- 
tation of  the  prophecies  ?  In  three  days  such  an 
entire  revolution  of  all  the  opinions  and'  hopes  in 
which  they  had  lived  from  childhood  ?  The  third 
day  he  rose  from  the  dead, —  confesses  the  whole 
ancient  Christian  tradition.  Even  if  we  grant  that 
such  a  change  were  possible  without  the  interven- 
tion of  some  great  event,  it  is  too  much  to  expect  us 
to  believe  it  possible  within  three  days.  The  third 
day  is  very  troublesome  for  Strauss ;  and  he  devises 
a  conjecture,  that  the  disciples  at  first,  without  any 
idea  of  a  resurrection,  returned  to  Galilee,  and  that 
there  the  change  gradually  came  to  pass.  But  this 
is  flying  in  the  face  of  history,  and  substituting 
groundless  conjectures  for  sure  testimony.  The 
third  day  is  not  only  certified  by  Paul,  and  through 
him  by  Peter,  —  we  have  the  most  overwhelming 
evidence  for  it  in  the  celebration  of  this  third  day, 
Sunday,  which  reaches  back  into  the  apostolic  age. 
Whence  comes  this  unanimous  testimony,  "  the 
third  day  he  rose  from  the  dead,"  if  on  this  third 


THE  MIRACLES.  133 

day  no  real  event  took  place  upon  which  the  cer- 
tainty that  "  the  Lord  is  risen"  was  based  ?  In  the 
face  of  this  testimony,  every  possibility  of  making  a 
vision  conceivable  vanishes. 

There  is  still  another  question.  What  became 
of  the  body  of  Jesus  ?  This  question  also  is  very 
troublesome  to  our  opponents :  they  try  to  evade  it 
by  every  artifice  of  speech,  saying  that  nothing  de- 
pends upon  it ;  that  now  no  one  can  know  any  thing 
about  it.  But  let  us  not  be  diverted.  We  repeat. 
What  became  of  the  body  of  Jesus  if  he  did  not  rise 
from  the  dead  ?  If  it  remained  in  the  tomb,  then 
tell  me  why  his  enemies  did  not  simply  point  to  the 
tomb,  to  the  dead  body  lying  in  it,  and  thereby  put 
an  end  to  the  whole  illusion  of  a  resurrection,  to  all 
fanaticism  and  aU  visions.  Can  it  be  supposed  that 
the  enemies  of  Christianity  —  and  it  had  enemies 
as  determined  as  they  were  clever — would  not  have 
used  this  simplest  of  means  to  destroy  Christianity  ? 
Had  they  no  interest  in  doing  so  ?  The  announce- 
ment of  the  resurrection  was  a  direct  attack  upon 
the  supreme  council,  upon  the  rulers  of  the  Jews : 
it  contained  the  gravest  charge  against  them  that 
could  be  made  against  a  Jew,  —  the  charge  that 
they  had  killed  the  Messiah.  Yet  are  they  sup- 
posed to  have  kept  silence,  or  to  have  contented 
themselves  with  saying  that  it  was  not  true,  or  to 
have  stooped  to  such  weak  replies  as  this,  that  his 
disciples  had  stolen  him  away ;  when  they  could 
have  vindicated  themselves  at  once  by  the  simplest 
of  means,  —  by  opening  the  tomb  and  showing  the 


134  THE  MIRACLES. 

dead  body  ?  That  is  impossible.  The  tomb  must 
have  been  empty,  as  even  Renan  does  not  venture 
to  deny.  The  next  question  is,  Who  took  the  body 
away  from  the  tomb  ?  I  cannot  be  contented  with 
a  number  of  mutterings  about  mysteries,  and  ne- 
cessary ignorance.  There  are  only  three  possible 
answers,  —  either  his  enemies,  or  his  friends,  or, 
finally,  some  unknown  third  person.  Was  it  his 
enemies  ?  This  is  not  possible,  for  they  would  have 
said  so.  Was  it  his  friends  ?  This  also  is  not  pos- 
sible ;  for  then  they  would  have  been  impostors  of 
the  most  shameless  sort,  and  I  hope  that  no  one 
here  needs  to  be  convinced  that  they  were  not  such. 
Then  some  unknown  third  person,  who,  without  the 
disciples'  knowledge,  for  some  unknown  reason,  took 
away  the  body  of  Jesus,  and  for  some  unknown  rea- 
son was  silent  about  it  afterwards.  If  that  person 
had  not  done  it,  or  had  only  broken  his  silence,  then 
the  belief  in  the  resurrection  would  not  have  arisen. 
One  word  from  this  imknown  person,  and  the  belief 
in  the  resurrection  would  have  been  impossible ; 
Christianity  would  not  have  sprung  up ;  the  whole 
course  of  the  world,  the  entire  history  of  our  race, 
would  have  been  different.  Every  thing  depended 
upon  the  chance,  that  the  mysterious  Unknown 
would  take  a  notion,  no  one  knows  why,  to  abstract 
the  body  of  Jesus  from  the  tomb ;  every  thing  de- 
pended upon  the  still  stranger  chance,  that  he  would 
keep  perfectly  silent  about  it.  If  you  can  believe 
that ;  if  you  can  make  the  most  significant  change 
in  the  history  of  our  race,  in  the  whole  course  of  the 


THE  MIRACLES.  135 

world,  depend  upon  an  accident,  —  then  look  to  the 
results  of  such  a  view  of  the  world.  It  would  be 
useless  to  waste  another  word  against  it. 

Hume,  whose  strife  against  miracles  Strauss  es- 
teems very  highly,  tries  to  do  away  with  them  by 
showing  that  it  is  invariably  more  probable  that  the 
best  witnesses  should  have  erred,  than  that  a  mira- 
cle should  have  occm-red.  The  best  testimony  is  said 
to  have  the  weight  of  a  feather  in  comparison  with 
the  exceedingly  ponderous  improbability  of  a  mir- 
acle. I  think,  however,  that  I  have  shown  on  which 
side  the  exceedingly  ponderous  improbability  lies. 
That  Paul's  whole  faith,  life,  occupation  and  work 
were  founded  upon  a  delusion ;  that  five  hundred 
persons  have  a  vision  at  once  ;  that  the  thoroughly 
disheartened  disciples  became  totally  different  per- 
sons within  three  days,  without  the  occurrence  of 
any  corresponding  event,  that  the  whole  course  of 
the  history  of  the  world  depended  upon  the  chance 
act  of  some  unknown  person,  —  these,  I  hope  you 
will  say  with  me,  are  nothing  but  exceedingly  pon- 
derous improbabilities  :  and  we  may  venture  to  say, 
whoever  denies  the  resurrection  to  be  a  fact,  deals 
with  mere  enigmas  and  incomprehensibilities.  A 
simple,  unbiassed  treatment  of  history  conipels  us 
to  acknowledge  the  fact ;  Christ  really  rose  from 
the  dead.* 

It  is  of  course  always  possible  to  think,  in  spite 
of  all  that  has  been  said,  that  this  cannot  be  correct. 
He  who  cannot  explain  how  Paul  became  convinced 

*  See  Note  I.  p.  157. 


136  THE  MIRACLES. 

that  he  could  work  miracles,  or  how  the  disciples 
came  to  the  belief  that  Jesus  had  risen  from  the 
dead,  may  still  assert  that  no  real  miracle  can  have 
taken  place ;  for  miracles  are  not  possible,  are  not 
to  be  reconciled  with  reason.  Then  he  assumes  the 
point  of  view  from  which  he  does  not  subordinate 
his  ideas  to  realities,  but  sets  them  above  realities  ; 
he  does  not  adapt  his  theories  to  the  facts,  but 
wishes  the  facts  to  adapt  themselves  to  his  theories ; 
and  he  is  not  far  from  the  standpoint  of  Voltaire, — 
from  saying,  I  will  not  believe  a  miracle.  Then 
all  discussion  ceases.  But,  from  the  natural  science 
of  the  present  day,  this  at  least  ought  to  have  been 
learned,  —  that  our  reasoning  must  follow  facts,  that 
it  is  properly  only  a  consideration  of  facts.  This  de- 
mand alone  is  just,- — that  miracles  shall,  be  brought 
within  the  line  of  our  reasoning,  that  it  shall  be 
shown  that  they  do  not  contradict  a  correct  reason- 
ing about  God  and  the  world. 

In  the  question  of  miracles,  every  thing  depends 
upon  the  view  we  hold  of  God  and  the  world,  and 
the  relations  of  God  to  the  world.  The  atheist,  who 
believes  in  no  God,  can  of  course  believe  in  no  mira- 
cle. The  materialist  who  knows  nothing  but  mat- 
ter, finite  matter,  no  Spirit  in  the  world  and  over 
the  world,  can  naturally  find  no  miracle.  It  is 
equally  impossible  to  conceive  of  miracles  from  the 
pantheistic  standpoint.  If  God  and  nature  are  one, 
the  idea  of  a  miracle  is  self-contradictory ;  for  to 
say  that  God  does  something  which  cannot  take 
place  through  the  intrinsic  powers  of  the  laws  of 


THE  MIRACLES.  187 

nature,  means,  ffom  this  standpoint,  God  does 
something  which  cannot  take  place  through  his  own 
intrinsic  laws.  As  miracles  vanish  when  the  dis- 
tinction between  God  and  the  world  is  entirely 
removed,  so  also  when  God  and  the  world  are  sejw 
arated,  so  that  God  has  no  longer  any  connection 
with  the  world,  the  development  of  the  world  runs 
like  a  musical  clock,  which  plays  the  single  melody 
that  has  been  arranged  by  fixed  pins  within  it. 
Miracles  require  a  free,  personal  God,  who  rules 
over  the  world  and  still  works  in  the  world ;  they 
presume  a  relative  independence,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  dependence,  of  the  world  upon  God. 

That  is  only  preliminary.  Let  us  first  consider 
the  argument  by  which  some  think  they  can  prove 
the  impossibility  of  miracles  directly  from  the  stand- 
point of  natural  science.  The  entire  universe,  it  is 
said,  is  an  organized  whole,  with  fixed  laws.  These 
laws  rule  not  only  upon  our  earth,  but  everywhere, 
so  far  as  Our  observations  extend.  Our  telescopes 
show  that  the  same  law  of  gravity  which  regulates 
the  fall  of  a  stone  upon  the  earth,  also  governs  the 
course  of  the  most  distant  stars.  The  spectral  an- 
alysis has  lately  furnished  the  proof,  that  the  same 
chemical  laws  prevail  in  the  sun  and  stars  as  in  the 
earth.  These  laws  have  ruled  for  ever.  The  form 
of  the  earth,  the  layers  of  rocks  prove  it  of  a  time 
long  before  the  foot  of  man  trod  the  earth.  Every- 
where, wherever  we  look,  we  find  a  close-bound 
chain  of  final  causes  and  effects  governed  by  fixed 
laws.     So  long  as  this  knowledge  of  the  rule  of  law 


138  THE  MIRACLES. 

in  nature  was  undiscovered  by  men,  they  could 
naively  imagine  that  God  intervened  here  and  there, 
that  he  worked  miracles.  But  since  men  have  dis- 
covered this  knowledge  through  the  progress  of  the 
natural  sciences,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  believe 
a  miracle.  A  miracle  on  God's  part  would  be  arbi- 
trariness ;  it  would  be  breaking  his  own  law  at 
will :  on  the  part  of  the  world,  it  would  be  an  in- 
terruption of  her  legitimate  course. 

It  has  been  thought  that  the  best  way  of  avoiding 
this  conclusion  was  the  utter  denial  of  the  existence 
of  natural  laws ;  as  is  done,  for  instance,  by  the 
ultramontane  Dogmatik  of  the  Roman-Catholic 
theologian  Perrone.  According  to  Perrone,  every 
thing  that  occurs  is  simply  the  result  of  a  special 
act  of  the  will  of  God.  The  existence  of  natural 
laws  is  only  seeming,  —  they  exist  only  in  our 
thoughts.  The  fact,  for  instance,  that  from  barley 
grows  barley,  and  not  thistles,  is  not  the  result  of  a 
natural  law,  but  in  every  single  case  it  is  the  result 
of  an  act  of  the  Divine  will.  The  existence  also 
of  species  and  races  is  only  in  appearance.  There 
exist  in  reality  only  individuals,  whom  God  in  every 
single  case  guides  and  governs  according  to  his 
special  will.  At  the  first  glance,  this  view  of  the 
world  may  seem  to  be  the  truly  religious  one.  In 
it  there  is  no  more  difficulty  with  miracles.  They 
are  works  of  the  Divine  will,  like  every  thing  else. 
Every  thing  is  now  miraculous ;  every  thing  takes 
place  from  and  by  a  direct  intervention  of  God. 
But  let  us  not  overlook  the  other  side.     Where 


THE  MIRACLES.  139 

every  thing  is  miracle,  nothing  is  miracle.  The 
distinction  ceases  between  what  is  and  what  is  not 
miraculous.  On  this  account  the  denial  of  natural 
laws  is  questionable  directly  from  a  religious  point 
of  view ;  and  it  is  also  questionable  on  other  ac- 
counts. It  is  a  mere  delusion  to  fancy  that  we  have 
any  interest  in  denying  the  existence  of  natural 
laws.  Should  not  the  power  and  wisdom  of  God 
appear  as  great  —  yes,  and  greater  —  to  us  when  we 
perceive  the  laws  which  he  has  given  to  the  world, 
by  which  the  stars  keep  their  paths  and  the  worm 
leads  its  life  in  the  dust,  than  when  we  refer  every 
thing  that  occurs,  in  every  single  case,  to  a  special 
act  of  God's  will  ?  Indeed,  if  moral  dealing  is  pos- 
sible only  in  a  world  which  moves  by  fixed  laws, 
have  we  not,  inversely,  a  moral  and  religious  inter- 
est in  admitting  the  existence  of  laws  of  nature  ? 

We  admit,  without  hesitation,  the  premise  of  that 
reasoning:  the  universe  is  an  organized  whole, which 
moves  by  fixed  laws.  But  does  it  immediately  fol- 
low that  every  miracle,  every  intervention  of  tha 
Divine  will  in  this  organized  whole,  is  a  disturb- 
ance ?  According  to  the  law  of  gravity,  a  ball  must 
run  down  on  an  inclined  plane.  If  I,  by  my  free 
will,  take  hold  of  it  and  stop  its  course,  is  that  a 
disturbance  of  the  laws  of  nature  ?  Apart  from  the 
intervention  of  free  will,  every  thing  moves  by  nat- 
ural law :  even  the  effect  which  the  act  of  the  will 
has  caused  remains  with  its  results  under  the  rule 
of  the  law  of  nature.  In  an  uncultivated  field,  a 
certain  vegetation  will  develop  itself  according  to 


140  THE  MIRACLES. 

the  laws  of  nature,  according  to  the  character  of  the 
soil,  the  climate,  the  region.  If  man  intervenes, — 
ploughs  the  land,  sows  grain,  so  that  a  cornfield 
grows  where  thorns  and  thistles  were  before,  where 
do  you  find  any  disturbance  of  the  legitimate 
course  ?  That  which  has  taken  place,  however, 
would  not  have  taken  place  without  the  free  act  of 
man,  which  was  not  done  from  the  necessity  of  the 
laws  of  nature.  Why  then  is  it  said  to  be  a  disturb- 
ance, if  the  free  will  of  God  intervenes  anywhere  ? 
Here  also  it  is  true,  as  Eothe  rightly  insisted,  that 
the  result  of  this  intervention  remains  entirely  sub- 
ject to  the  law  of  nature.  The  wine  which  the  Lord 
made  at  the  wedding  in  Cana  was  governed  by  the 
laws  of  nature,  just  as  all  other  wine;  the  bread 
which  he  multiplied  in  the  wilderness,  just  as  all 
other  bread.  Is  it  a  disturbance  that  there  is  some 
wine  in  the  world  which  was  not  pressed  from  grapes 
that  grew  on  the  vine  ;  some  bread  which  was  not 
made  of  flour  by  a  baker  ?  It  is  no  more  of  a  dis- 
to-'bance  than  that  the  ball  which  I  hold  up  does 
not  roll  down  ;  than  that  where  man  tills  the  ground 
a  cornfield  grows  up  instead  of  thorn-bushes.  Where 
is  the  disturbance  in  this  case  ? 

It  is,  perhaps,  rejDlied,  The  disturbance  is  the 
intervention  itself.  Very  well :  the  reply  only  serves 
to  indicate  the  precise  fault  of  the  whole  argument. 
It  consists  in  confounding  a  system,  organized  ac- 
cording to  fixed  laws,  with  an  absolutely  closed 
complex  of  final  causes.  That  the  world  is  an 
organized  whole,  is  granted;  but  that  it  must  be 


THE   MIRACLES.  141 

such  an  absolutely  closed  complex  of  final  causes, 
absolutely  closed  against  every  other  causality,  is  a 
proposition  plainly  unproved,  and  I  may  add  plainly 
incapable  of  proof.  It  may  be  shown  on  the  con- 
trary, that,  according  to  reasonable  thinking,  this 
complex  of  final  causes  must  once  at  least  have 
stood  open  to  a  higher  causality.  A  miracle  at  the 
beginning  must  be  admitted,  unless  one  is  willing 
to  give  up  all  reasoning  about  the  origin  of  this 
world. 

Let  us  examine  for  a  moment  the  train  of  thought 
of  those  who  think  they  can  comprehend  every  thing 
by  final  causes,  and  see  whether  we  thereby  reach 
a  satisfactory  result.  We  start  with  the  present 
world,  with  the  present  state  of  animal  and  vegeta- 
ble life,  and  from  this  go  backwards.  The  perfect, 
it  is  said,  has  developed  from  the  imperfect;  the 
higher  animals  from  the  lower.  The  Darwinian 
theory  shows  us,  to-day,  how  all  animals  are  de- 
scended from  some  few  original  animal  forms.  We 
go  backwards  therefore  from  species  to  species,  and 
find,  extending  up  to  these  original  forms,  an  un- 
broken chain  of  final  causes  and  efiects.  But  these 
first  animals,  how  did  they  originate  ?  From  the 
plants  ?  Even  the  natural  science  of  the  present 
day  has  not  made  this  comprehensible.  We  stand 
before  a  chasm  over  which  we  cannot  pass  without 
a  beginning  of  creation ;  that  is  to  say,  without  a 
miracle.  The  animal,  as  Martensen  beautifully 
says,  is  a  miracle  to  the  plants.  But  suppose  we 
leap  the  boundary  between  the  animals  and  plants, 


142  THE  MIRACLES. 

and  assume  that  tlie  first  animals  sprung,  in  a 
perfectly  natural  way,  from  the  plants ;  and  go  still 
farther  back,  to  the  first  plant-cells :  consequently, 
to  the  first  mother  of  all  living  beings  on  the  earth. 
But  whence  did  the  first  plant-cell  originate  ?  From 
inorganic  things  ?  At  this  point  natural  science 
says,  decidedly.  No :  never  does  the  organic  develop 
from  the  inorganic  :  the  living  from  the  dead.  We 
stand  again  before  a  chasm,  which  is  still  wider  than 
the  first ;  and  again  nothing  can  help  us  over  but  an 
act  of  creation  by  which  the  first  plant-cell  was  called 
into  life  :  hence,  a  miracle.  The  plant  is  a  miracle 
for  the  stone.  But  suppose  we  even  pass  over  this, 
and  on  to  the  time  when  our  entire  solar  system 
was  still  a  great  ball,  a  world  of  cloud ;  and  yet 
farther,  —  to  the  time  when  the  world  was  still  noth- 
ing but  mere  single,  separate,  freely  moving  atoms. 
How  did  the  world,  with  its  magnificence  and  infi- 
nite variety,  grow  out  of  these  characterless  and 
unrelated  atoms  ?  The  atoms,  it  is  said,  gathered 
themselves  together,  nuclei  were  formed,  —  but 
stop  ;  we  must  let  nothing  slip  :  How  did  this  come 
to  pass  ?  I  will  not  ask.  Whence  came  the  atoms 
themselves  ?  I  will  also  overlook  the  fact,  that  this 
whole  doctrine  of  atoms  begins  to  be  very  doubtful 
in  natural  science :  I  will  only  ask.  How  did  it  come 
to  pass  that  the  first  two  atoms  united  ?  The  power 
that  united  them  cannot  have  lain  in  themselves, 
for  they  were  characterless  atoms  ;  but  granted  that 
such  a  power  did  lie  in  them,  how  did  it  happen 
that  they  got  in  motion,  —  that  this  power  all  at 


THE   MIRACLES.  143 

once  came  into  action  ?  Another  power  must  have 
existed,  must  have  intervened,  —  a  power  outside  of, 
above,  the  atoms,  —  a  higher  causality.  Whether 
any  one  succeeds  or  not  in  explaining  the  whole 
development  of  the  world  from  mere  final  causes, 
without  the  intervention  of  a  higher  causality,  he 
will  never  succeed  in  explaining  the  beginning,  even 
if  it  consists  simply  in  the  union  of  two  atoms,  with- 
out such  an  intervention.  As  long  as  this  result  is 
not  attained,  so  long  may  the  proposition  that  this 
finite  world  is  shut  against  a  higher  cause  be  marked 
miproved  ;  so  long  must  we  lay  it  down  as  a  demand 
of  the  reason  itself,  that  the  world  is  open  to  this 
cause ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  miracles  are  pos- 
sible.* 

Possible,  —  but  that  is  not  the  same  as  neces- 
sary ;  and,  even  if  the  necessity  of  a  miracle  of 
creation  be  admitted,  that  does  not  prove  the  neces- 
sity of  miracles  in  the  midst  of  the  course  of  the 
world's  development.  On  the  contrary,  after  God 
has  once  created  the  world,  must  we  not  suppose 
that  he  made  it  so  good,  so  perfect,  so  self-sus- 
tained, that  it  needed  no  further  intervention  on 
his  part  ?  It  is  thus  fancied  that  we  gain  a  reli- 
gious interest  in  behalf  of  the  denial  of  miracles.  It 
is  unworthy  of  God  to  suppose  that  the  world  needs 
his  miraculous  intervention,  that  he  must  repair  it 
as  a  workman  mends  a  badly-made  machine.  We 
can  admit  no  miracles ;  because  we  cannot  suppose 
that  the  world  was  imperfectly  created. 

*  See  Note  II.  p.  159. 


144  THE  MIRACLES. 

Certainly  not.  It  was  all  "  very  good."  But, 
leaving  out  altogether  the  question,  whether  even  a 
perfectly  made  world  did  not  require  a  miracle  for 
its  completion  (for  perfect  is  not  the  same  as  fin- 
ished), cannot  the  world  have  become  imperfect? 
Give  me  an  answer  from  no  theory  of  any  kind,  but 
from  experience.  Thousands  of  years  ago,  old 
Homer  said,  — 

"  Of  all  that  breathes,  or  grovelling  creeps  on  earth, 
Most  vain  is  man !  calamitous  by  birth."  * 

To  put  a  more  modern  witness  by  his  side,  I  re- 
member a  saying  of  Goethe's,  who  was,  if  ever 
man  was,  gifted  with  all  that  this  world  can  give. 
Towards  the  end  of  his  life  he  once  said,  "  When  I 
look  back  over  my  whole  life,  and  count  all  the  days 
when  I  have  enjoyed  pure,  unalloyed  happiness,  I 
make  up  no  more  than  the  length  of  a  month." 
Will  you  in  spite  of  such  avowals,  in  spite  of  all  the 
want,  poverty,  illness,  wretchedness,  misery  and 
death,  still  say  this  world  is  perfect  ?  For  the  sake 
of  a  theory  perhaps  you  will:  what  will  one  not 
say  to  save  a  theory  ?  But  experience  says.  No.  If 
the  world  is  imperfect,  —  if  God  cannot  have  cre- 
ated it  imperfect,  —  then  it  must  have  become  im- 
perfect. By  what  means  ?  I  come  to  the  decisive 
question,  —  a  question,  it  is  true,  rather  of  the  con- 
science than  of  the  understanding.  Is  there  any 
sin  ?     Or  is  that  also  a  childish  notion,  which  we 

*  OdA'Ssey,  book  xviii.  1.  130, 131 ;  (Pope's  Translation,  book  xviii. 
1. 157,  158).  ' 


THE  MIRACLES.  145 

highly  cultivated  people  of  the  nineteenth  century 
have  outgrown  ?  The  Scriptures  declare  sin  to  be  a 
fact ;  and  our  conscience,  whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
answers,  Yes.  A  disturbance  has  thus  broken  into 
the  world,  a  hindrance  and  corruption  of  its  develop- 
ment ;  *  and  if  the  goal  of  completion  which  God  set 
before  the  world  shall  still  be  reached,  then  it  needs 
an  intervention  of  God,  a  restoration,  a  miracle  of 
redemption.  The  fundamental  confession  of  Christ- 
endom is,  that  it  confesses  this  miracle  of  restoration 
to  have  taken  place,  in  that  the  Son  of  God  became 
man,  and  redeemed  us.  All  the  other  miracles 
which  the  Scriptures  relate  can  only  be  understood 
in  connection  with  this  miracle.  The  miracles  of 
the  Old  Testament  are  premonitions  and  warnings 
of  this  miracle  ;  all  the  miraculous  deeds  of  Jesus 
are  only  single  expressions  of  it.  He  who  came  to 
put  away  sin,  and  with  it  all  evil,  —  sickness  also, 
and  death,  as  the  consequences  of  sin, — heals 
the  sick  and  raises  the  dead.  He  who  came  to 
restore  the  disturbed  development  exercises  power 
over  nature,  turns  water  into  wine,  and  stills  the 
tempest.  His  miracles  are  at  once  prophecies  of 
the  consummation,  anticipations,  prototypes,  of  what 
shall  take  place  at  the  end  of  days,  when  the  mirar 
cle  of  redemption  shall  be  expressed  in  the  comple- 
tion of  all  things,  and  every  thing  shall  become 
new. 

I  may  now  be  permitted  to  ask  again,  if  that  is  a 
disturbance.      Do  you  think  it  a  disturbance  of  life 

*  See  Note  III.  p.  162. 
10 


146  THE  MIRACLES. 

when  a  physician  restores  a  sick  system  to  health  ? 
I  may  now  ask  whether  you  regard  it  unworthy  of 
God  to  thus  intervene  in  the  world,  healing  and 
saving.  It  is  now  very  plain  how  groundless  the 
charge  is,  that  the  miracles  are  arbitrary  on  the 
part  of  God.  It  is  a  sheer  caricature,  and  not  at 
all  the  Biblical  idea  of  miracles,  when  they  are  con- 
ceived to  be  incidental  interventions  in  nature  at 
God's  pleasure,  as  arbitrary  displays  of  power,  with 
no  other  object  than  to  display  that  power.  Cer- 
tainly they  are  that  also,  —  displays  of  the  power  of 
the  living  God,  who  rules  over  the  world,  who  gave, 
it  the  laws  by  which  it  lives  ;  and  they  are  likewise 
intended  to  show  directly  before  the  eyes  of  men, 
that  there  is  a  living  God,  who  works  miracles  (Ps. 
Ixxvii.  15).  But,  in  the  highest  sense,  they  are 
manifestations  of  his  love, — miracles  of  love,  of  the 
merciful,  redeeming,  saving  love,  which  will  not  let 
the  world  that  has  fallen  into  sin  be  lost  in  it,  but 
will  lead  the  world,  that  has  strayed  into  false 
ways,  back  towards  the  goal  of  perfection,  which 
this  love  has  set  before  it.  They  are  thus  the  exact 
opposite  of  arbitrariness :  they  are  in  the  highest 
sense  designed. 

While  looking  at  the  miracles  in  the  light  of  the 
divine  decree  of  salvation,  regarding  them  as  the 
acts  of  God  for  our  redemption,  we  feel  that  we 
ourselves  are  thus  placed  in  the  midst  of  miracles. 
The  miracle  of  redemption  is  constantly  expressed 
among  us  in  miracles,  in  the  sublime  spiritual 
miracles,  —  the  miracles  of  grace.     In  the  miracles 


THE   MIRACLES.  147 

of  conversion,  of  regeneration,  of  sanctification,  we 
have  miracles  which  do  not  belong  to  past  times, 
but  which  take  place  to-day  ;  and  whoever  has  ex- 
perienced any  thing  of  these  miracles  in  his  own 
heart,  possesses  in  himself,  in  the  change  of  his  life, 
in  the  peace  which  he  enjoys,  in  the  comfort  which 
refreshes  him,  in  the  hope  which  lifts  him  up  above 
all  else,  the  actual  proof  that  there  are  miracles. 
This  proof  I  can  furnish  to  no  one :  that  must  be 
done  by  another,  —  the  Spirit,  which  "  beareth  wit- 
ness with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of 
God." 

We  now  return  to  the  thoughts  from  which  we 
set  out  several  weeks  ago.  Faith  cannot  be  demon- 
strated to  any  one  ;  but  obstacles  can  be  removed, 
and  this  we  ought  to  attempt.  According  to  my 
ability,  I  have  attempted  it ;  and  if  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  but  a  small  measure,  in  proving  that  our 
faith  is  still  unsubdued  by  modern  science  ;  if  per- 
haps I  have  thereby  strengthened  any  one  in  his 
faith  and  protected  him  from  importunate  doubts  ; 
or  if  I  have  been  able  to  rouse  any  one  to  meet 
these  questions  no  longer  with  indifference,  and 
with  the  excuse  that  this  has  all  been  done  away 
with  long  ago,  and  is  worth  no  more  thought,  —  if  I 
have  succeeded  in  only  some  part  of  these  things, 
this  is  the  blessing  which  I  entreat  for  these  dis- 
courses. 

Permit  me  a  word  in  conclusion.  The  present 
position  of  the  Church  is  in  the  highest  degree 
grave.     The  question  is,  whether  nature  shall  take 


148  THE  MIRACLES. 

the  place  of  the  living  God  —  the  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth  —  in  the  faith  of  our  people,  and  the 
place  of  Christianity  be  assumed  by  a  religion  of 
humanity,  if  it  may  be  called  a  religion.  It  is  the 
question,  whether  mankind  has  been  deceived  by 
the  appearance  of  Jesus  and  the  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  has  been  urged  into  a  wrong  road ;  so 
that  now,  since  history  and  criticism,  and  especially 
the  natural  sciences,  have  shown  the  Christian  faith 
to  be  a  delusion,  nothing  remains  but  to  break  off 
its  development,  and  begin  again  where  it  departed 
from  the  right  way,  —  at  the  heathenism  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans.  That  is  essentially  the  view 
of  a  French  school,  which  is  represented  by  such  dis- 
tinguished names  as  Burnouf,  Maury,  and  others ;  * 
and  Renan  is  not  far  from  it.  This  school  holds, 
that,  by  the  progress  of  Christianity,  we  have  been 
drawn  into  Semitic  ideas,  which  run  directly  con- 
trary to  our  Japhetic  traditions  and  instincts.  The 
connection  with  these  must  be  renewed ;  and  then 
the  tendency  of  the  Japhetic  spirit,  the  character 
of  which  is  described  as  a  pantheistic  view  of  na- 
ture, must  certainly  prevail.  Similar  views  are 
also  expressed  among  us  more  and  more  openly; 
and  some  do  not  hesitate  to  treat  Christianity  as  a 
phenomenon  whose  day  has  gone  by,  and  which  can 
no  longer  stand  before  modern  science.  The  "  Life 
of  Jesus  "  by  Strauss  is  evidently  based  upon  this 
view. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  who  think 

*  See  Note  IV.  p.  163. 


THE  MIRACLES.  149 

that  Christianity  and  the  Church  can  only  be  pre- 
served by  squaring  itself  to  the  rules  of  the  culture 
of  the  present  day,  from  which  it  is  said  to  be  too 
much  estranged.     It  is  said  that  for  this  reason  we 
must  resolve  to  give  up  a  part  of  the  ancient  faith, 
to  yield  some  untenable  positions  to  the  pressure 
of  science,  in  order  thereby  to  make  more  sure  of 
tlie  main  substance.     From  this  circle  came  the 
"  Character  of  Jesus  "  by  Schenkel.    That  there  are 
many  in  this  circle  who  truly  and  sincerely  desire 
to  preserve  Christianity  and  the  Church,  I  do  not 
doubt ;  but  I  am  none  the  less  sure,  that  the  way 
they  take  to  do  it  cannot  be  the  right  way.     What 
they  abandon  is  not  the  unessentials,  but  the  very 
essence,  of  Christianity  ;  not  temporary  forms,  but 
its  inalienable  substance  :  and  their  labor  will  only 
serve  to  prepare  the  way  for  those  who  come  after 
them  to  reject  it  altogether.      It  is  certainly  the 
business  of  the  Church  to  keep  in  active  connection 
with  the  development  of  modern  cultm^e ;  not,  how- 
ever, by  retreating  before  it,  but  by  pervading  it 
with  the  Christian  spirit.     To  be  able  to  do  this,  it 
must  neither  despise  nor  shun  science  and  culture. 
Not  every  thing,  it  is  true,  which  is  now  passed  off 
for  science  and  culture,  is  true  science  and  genuine 
culture.     No  Christian  may  despise  true  science, 
for  it  is  a  gift  of  God ;   and  to  do  that  would  be 
contrary  to  the  declaration  of  the  great  apostle  of 
the  Gentiles  :  "  All  are  yours."    Nor  may  Christian- 
ity shun  any  science,  —  neither  history  and  criticism, 
nor  the  natural  sciences.     It  is  true  that  they  can- 


150  THE  MIRACLES. 

not  give  us  what  is  highest  and  best ;  but  we  abide 
in  the  conviction  that  they  cannot  take  it  away  from 
us,  and  we  are  also  ready  to  give  an  answer  to  every 
man  that  asketh  a  reason  of  the  hope  that  is  in  us. 
Still  the  final,  thorough,  heart-winning  proof  of  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  faith  must  be  set  forth  by 
our  lives. 

I  will  close  by  reminding  all  of  you,  that  the  best 
defence  of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  the  life  of  a  Christian 
in  whom  Jesus  lives.  Let  us  all  work  together  in 
this  defence. 


NOTES. 


ON  THE  FIRST  DISCOURSE. 

I  AM  aware  that  an  authority  like  Hitter,  in  his  essay, 
"  Ernest  Renan  on  the  Natural  Sciences  and  His- 
tory," *  defends  Renan  against  the  charge  of  pantheism. 
Pantheism  has  a  somewhat  Protean  nature ;  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  give  pantheistic  thoughts  a  turn  so  as  to  appear 
as  if  one  only  desired,  in  opposition  to  an  abstract  deism, 
to  teach  of  a  God  who  lives  and  works  in  the  world.  This 
much,  however,  can  be  said  with  perfect  certainty  :  Renan's 
God  is  not  the  God  of  the  Scriptures.  To  be  sure  he 
says  it  is  an  incomplete  theology  to  conceive  of  God  as 
merely  synonymous  with  "la  totale  existence,"  as  merely 
"  in  fieri."  "  Dieu  est  plus  que  la  totale  existence,  il  est  en 
meme  temps  I'absolu.  II  est  I'ordre  ou  les  mathematiques, 
la  m^taphysique,  la  logique  sont  vraies :  il  est  le  lieu  de 
I'ideal,  le  principe  vivant  du  bien,  du  beau,  et  du  vrai. 
Envisage  de  la  sorte,  Dieu  est  pleinement  et  sans  reserve  ; 
il  est  eternal  et  immuable,  sans  progres  ni  devenirT  Let 
any  one  compare  this  with  the  following  sentences :  "  De 
qui  est  done  cette  phrase  qu'un  bienveillant  anonyme 
m'addressait  il  y  a  quelques  jours :  '■  Dieu  est  immanent 
non-seulement  dans  I'ensemble  de  I'univers,  mais  dans  cha- 

♦  "  Ernst  Renan  iiber  die  Naturwissenschaften  und  die  GescMchte  ** 
(Gotha,  1865). 


152  NOTES. 

cun  des  etres  qui  le  composent.  Seulement  il  ne  se  connait 
pas  egalement  dans  tous.  H  se  connait  plus  dans  la 
plante  que  dans  le  rocher,  dans  Tanimal  que  dans  la 
plante,  dans  Thomme  que  dans  ranimal,  dans  I'liomme 
intelligent  que  dans  I'homme  born^,  dans  rhomme  de 
genie  que  dans  rhomme  intelligent,  dans  Socrate  que 
dans  rhomme  de  genie,  dans  Bouddha  que  dans  Socrate, 
dans  le  Christ  que  dans  Bouddha.'  Voila  la  these  fonda- 
mentale  de  toute  notre  theologie.  Si  c'est  bien  la  qu'a  vou- 
lu  dire  Hegel,  soyons  hegeliens."*  The  surest  criterion 
by  which  we  may  discern  pantheism  is  the  question  whether 
the  world  was  created  by  the  God  who  is  supreme  above  it. 
Renan  recognizes  no  creation  of  the  world:  he  at  least 
speaks  of  none  in  this  treatise,  according  to  the  whole  pur- 
port of  which  he  must  have  expressed  his  opinion  on  the 
subject.  Therefore  I  think  it  is  doing  him  no  injustice  to 
count  him  among  those  who  teach  what  is  a  kind  of  pan- 
theism, even  if  it  be  rather  less  palpable. 

ON  THE  THIRD  DISCOURSE. 

I.  p.  92.  —  The  words  of  Papias,  according  to  Eusebius 
(Church  History,  iii.  39),  run  as  follows:  "Mark,  after 
he  had  become  Peter's  interpreter,  wrote  out  accurately  as 
much  as  he  remembered  of  the  sayings  and  actions  of  the 
Lord.  This,  however,  was  not  done  according  to  historical 
order ;  for  he  had  not  heard  the  Lord,  and  had  not  been  one 
of  his  followers,  but  had  subsequently  become  a  disciple  of 
Peter,  who  arranged  his  discourses  to  supply  the  wants  of 
the  moment,  and  not  as  if  he  had  intended  to  make  a  reg- 
ular collection  of  the  Lord's  sayings.    Mark  therefore  made 

*  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1863,  Livraison  15  Octobre;  tome  47. 
pp.  772,  773. 


NOTES.  153 

no  ixistake  when  he  wrote  down  what  he  remembered,  for 
he  simply  undertook  this  one  thing,  neither  to  omit  nor 
to  faldfy  any  thing  he  had  heard."  The  assertion  which  is 
occasimally  made  to  set  aside  the  second  Gospel,  that  this 
testimwiy  has  no  reference  to  it,  is  groundless.  Its  impor- 
tance has  lately  been  more  and  more  acknowledged.  Al- 
though Holtzmann  has  made  a  fresh  attempt  to  distinguish 
the  olde*  form  of  the  Gospel  of  Mark  from  the  present 
form,  ani  to  attribute  only  this  older  Gospel  to  Mark, 
yet,  accoding  to  Holtzmann  himself,  this  distinction  be- 
tween Mirk's  Gospel  and  the  present  second  Gospel  is 
so  slight,  tiat  we  must  still  attribute  the  main  substance 
of  the  GosDel  to  Mark,  and  hence  to  the  authority  of 
Peter.  Beides,  Holtzmann  has  by  no  means  satisfac- 
torily proved  the  existence  of  such  an  original  of  Mark's 
Gospel.  \ 

II.  p.  92. -sPapias  says  concerning  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew  (EuseWs,  Church  History,  iii.  39)  :  "  Matthew 
put  the  sayings  oithe  Lord  together  in  the  Hebrew  tongue, 
and  every  one  intl^-preted  them  as  he  was  able."  Irenaeus, 
Origen,  and  many^thers,  also  testify  that  an  original  He- 
brew writing  is  the  >asis  of  the  Greek  Gospel.  The  testi- 
mony for  the  Greek  Matthew,  however,  reaches  far  back. 
In  a  letter  which  was  \ddressed  to  Barnabas,  and  was  writ- 
ten, at  the  latest,  in  thv  beginning  of  the  second  century,  a 
passage  from  the  GosAl  of  Matthew  is  quoted  as  if  from 
the  text.  Formerly,  sii^e  we  possessed  this  part  of  the 
letter  only  in  a  Latin  trii^slation,  it  might  seem  doubtful 
whether  this  stood  at  first  y  the  original,  or  had  perhaps 
been  added  by  the  Latin  Vanslator.  But  several  years 
ago,  in  the  old  manuscript\)f  the  Bible  discovered  by 
Tischendorf  in  the  Convent  a  Sinai,  there  was  found  the 


154  NOTES. 

Greek  original  of  the  letter  to  Barnabas,  and  the  quotttion 
was  found  to  be  the  same  in  this  as  in  the  Latin  trans- 
lation. 

m.  p.  97.  —  Irenseus,  in  a  letter  to  Florinus,  a  friend 
of  his  youth,  who  afterwards  apostatized,  says,  'While 
I  was  yet  a  boy,  I  saw  thee  in  company  with  Pohcarp  in 
Asia  Minor;  for  I  bear  in  remembrance  what  happened 
then,  better  than  what  happens   now.      "What  ve   have 
heard  in  childhood  grows  along  with  the  soul  and  be- 
comes one  with  it;  so  that  I  can  describe  thf  place  in 
which  the  blessed  Polycarp  sat  and  spake,  his  g'ing  in  and 
out,  his  manner  of  life,  and  the  shape  of  his  lerson ;  the 
discourses  which  he  deHvered  to  the  congregaion,  how  he 
told  of  his  intercourse  with  John  and  with  ^he  rest  who 
had  seen  the  Lord ;  how  he  repeated  their  sayings,  and 
what  he  had  heard  from  them  respecting  the  Lord,  his 
miracles  and  his  doctrine.     As  he  had  reeived  all  from 
the  eye-witnesses  of  his  life^  he  narrated  t  in  accordance 
with  Scripture.     These  things,  by  virtue  of  the  grace  of 
God  imparted  to  me,  I  listened  to,  ever  then,  with  eager- 
ness, and  wrote  them  down,  not  on  papt*,  but  in  my  heart; 
and,  by  the  grace  of  God,  I  constantly  Jring  them  up  again 
fresh  before  my  memory."  ^ 

IV.  p.  98.  —  It  is  worthy  of  esp<Jial  notice,  that  all  the 
newly  discovered  authorities  of  lat^ears  favor  the  Church's 
view  of  the  Gospels.  The  oppoite  would  be  expected  if 
this  view  were  erroneous. 

V.  p.  100.  —  It  has  been  nought  that  a  strong  point 

*  Neander's  Allgem.  K.  Gesch.,  •  Band,  iii.  Abth.  S.  1142.  (Torrey's 
Trans.,  vol.  i.  p.  677.) 


NOTES.  155 

against  the  genuineness  was  found  in  the  conduct  of  the 
Church  of  Asia  Minor  in  the  so-called  paschal  controversy. 
The  Christian  paschal  supper  was  joined  in  general  with 
that  of  the  Jews,  who  kept  their  passover  on  the  fifteenth 
of  the  month  Nisan,  after  having  eaten  the  paschal  lamb 
on  the  evening  of  the  fourteenth.  But  towards  the  end 
of  the  second  century  a  controversy  arose  between  the 
churches  of  Rome  and  Asia  ISIinor  concerning  the  particu- 
lars of  the  observance.  The  Roman  Church  celebrated 
their  paschal  supper  so  as  to  continue  their  fasting  through 
the  week  in  which  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan  fell,  without 
regard  to  what  day  of  the  week  it  happened,  until  cock- 
crow on  Sunday ;  and  then  they  began  the  joyful  time  of 
Pentecost  with  a  celebration  of  the  communion.  The 
Church  of  Asia  Minor,  on  the  contrary,  fasted  only  until 
the  evening  of  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan ;  then  they  had  a 
communion  service,  and  went  on  to  the  joyful  holiday.  It 
made  no  difference  with  them  whether  the  fourteenth  of 
Nisan  fell  on  Friday,  as  in  the  year  of  the  Lord's  death, 
or  on  any  other  week-day.  The  Church  of  Asia  Minor 
appeals  in  behalf  of  this  observance  to  the  apostolic  tradi- 
tion, and  especially  to  John ;  and  this,  it  is  said,  is  strong 
evidence  against  the  genuineness  of  the  fourth  Gospel. 
It  is  said  the  observance  shows  that  the  Church  of  Asia 
Minor  regarded  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan  as  the  date  of  the 
institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  for  on  this  day  they  cele- 
brated the  remembrance  of  its  institution  by  a  communion; 
consequently,  they  thought  the  fifteenth  of  Nisan  was  the 
day  of  Jesus'  death.  That  agrees  with  the  first  three 
Gospels,  but  not  with  the  fourth ;  for  (this  is  the  further 
presumption  of  this  argumentation),  according  to  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  Jesus  ate  the  paschal  lamb  with  the 
Jews  on  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan,  and  died  on  the  fifteenth ; 


156  NOTES. 

according  to  John  lie  died  on  the  fourteenth,  without  hav- 
ing eaten  the  proper  paschal  lamb.  How  then,  it  is  asked, 
can  the  Church  of  Asia  Minor  appeal  to  John  for  their 
custom,  when  his  record  of  the  date  of  Jesus'  death  directly 
contradicts  it  ?  The  John  who  celebrated  the  fourteenth 
of  Nisan  with  the  people  of  Asia  Minor,  as  the  day  of  the 
institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  cannot  be  the  author  of 
the  fourth  Gospel,  which  says  that  the  Lord  died  on  that 
very  day.  In  fact,  the  people  of  Asia  Minor  can  have 
known  nothing  about  this  Gospel,  or  they  could  not 
have  appealed  to  John. 

The  correctness  of  the  single  presumption  upon  which 
this  whole  argumentation  is  based,  need  not  be  discussed 
by  us.  The  matter  is  not  finally  decided,  and  the  opinions 
concerning  it  are  very  much  divided.  To  examine  them 
now  would  lead  us  too  far.  We  will  suppose  for  a  moment 
that  such  a  difference  did  exist.  Now,  if  the  paschal  feast 
of  the  Church  of  Asia  Minor  was  as  it  is  claimed  to  have 
been,  if  they  observed  the  fourteenth  of  Nisan  as  the  day 
of  the  institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  we  should  have 
a  bad  case.  But  this  is  not  correct.  Instead  of  this,  the 
late  thorough  investigations,  especially  those  of  Steitz  and 
Ewald,  have  shown  that  the  people  of  Asia  Minor  kept 
the  fourteenth  of  Nisan  as  the  day  of  Jesus'  death.  They 
therefore  held  a  communion  on  that  day,  in  accordance 
with  the  idea  expressed  by  Paul  and  very  widely  spread 
in  the  primitive  Church,  —  that  Christ,  the  real  paschal 
lamb,  was  sacrificed  for  us.  It  was  perfectly  proper  for 
them  to  refer  to  John  as  a  witness  in  behalf  of  this  custom, 
and  to  appeal  to  the  Gospel  for  it,  —  by  which  they  meant 
not  the  fourth  Gospel,  but  the  collective  Gospel  including 
the  fourth  Gospel ;  for  the  Church  of  Asia  Minor  at  least 
had  no  misgivings  of  a  difference  between  this  and  the  first 
three  Gospels. 


NOTES.  157 

VI.  p.  107.  —  The  attempts  to  distinguish  a  genuine 
substance  in  the  Gospel  from  later  additions  and  re- 
visions, are  based  upon  the  supposition,  that  the  Gospel 
cannot  be  wholly  unauthentic :  they  have  no  other  objective 
basis.  There  is  not  the  slightest  trace  of  evidence  which 
can  be  made  to  favor  such  a  division.  These  attempts, 
therefore,  are  of  a  wholly  subjective  sort ;  and,  as  usual  in 
such  cases,  they  diflfer  very  much,  according  to  the  indi- 
viduals who  contrive  them.  Where  one  person  looks  for 
the  genuine  substance,  another  sees  the  unauthentic  addi- 
tions. Weisse  holds  mainly  that  the  discourses  are  genu- 
ine ;  Renan,  the  historical  narrative ;  Schweizer,  in  the 
ingenious  efforts  which  he  afterwards  gave  up,  excluded 
the  Galilean  miracles  especially  as  unauthentic ;  while 
Schenkel  finds  in  the  story  of  the  wedding  at  Cana  what 
is  at  least  a  genuine  historical  recollection.  Schenkel  has 
in  general  followed  his  own  inclination  to  the  greatest 
extent.  He  sets  out  with  no  principle,  but  merely  with 
the  general  supposition,  that  there  is  a  genuine  substance 
to  be  traced  to  Johannine  recollections.  To  actually  dis- 
tinguish this,  he  does  not  proceed.  A  refutation  in  detail 
is  therefore  impossible. 

ON  THE  FOURTH  DISCOURSE. 

I.  p.  135.  —  Schenkel,  in  his  "  General  Ecclesiastical 
Journal "  *  (vol.  for  1865,  No.  5),  has  expressed  himself 
more  fully  concerning  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  He  there 
rejects  the  view  of  a  natural  or  miraculous  re-awakening 
of  the  body  of  Jesus  that  had  been  laid  in  the  grave,  and 
also  rejects  the  view  of  a  mere  vision.  The  resurrection 
is  said  to  be  rather  "  the  real  mysterious  self-revelation 

*  "  Allgemeinen  kirchlichen  Zeitschrift"  (Jahrgang  1865,  Heft  5). 


158  NOTES. 

of  the  personality  of  Christ,  which  had  come  forth  from 
death,  living  and  imperishable ; "  that  is  to  say,  the  cmci- 
fied  body  of  Jesus  remained  in  the  grave,  or  was  removed 
in  some  way  now  un discoverable,  but  he  received  forth- 
with a  higher  corporality,  he  lived  on  in  a  glorified  state, 
and  thus  manifested  himself  to  his  disciples.  Since  Schen- 
kel  himself  called  this  resurrection  a  miracle,  even  if  not  a 
"miracle  of  magic,  still  a  miracle  of  the  higher  divine 
order  of  the  world  and  of  nature,"  I  could  pass  over  his 
view  in  my  discourse,  and  only  remark  here  as  follows :  The 
whole  view  is  contrary  not  only  to  the  Gospels,  but  also 
and  especially  to  1  Cor.  xv.,  notwithstanding  Schenkel's 
strenuous  efforts  to  appropriate  this  chapter  to  himself. 
Paul  assuredly  believed  that  the  crucified  Christ  rose  on 
the  third  dsLj  from  the  grave.  This  is  evident  not  only 
from  the  connection  of  the  burial  and  the  resurrection 
(1  Cor.  XV.  4 ;  compare  also  what  is  said  about  baptism 
in  Rom.  vi.  4),  not  only  from  the  constantly  repeated 
expression,  "  risen  from  the  dead : "  it  is  evident  from  the 
whole  argument  of  the  apostle,  from  the  connection  of 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  with  our  resurrection.  Paul 
teaches  not  that  we  shall  receive  a  new,  more  highly 
organized  corporality,  but  that  our  bodies  sown  in  this 
earth  shall  rise  from  the  dead.  An  unbiassed  exegesis 
can  have  no  doubt  on  this  point.  This  view  is  also  beset 
by  the  same  difficulties  concerning  the  empty  grave  as  the 
visionary  theory.  Schenkel  will  hardly  satisfy  any  one 
with  this  view :  not  those  who  wish  to  set  aside  every 
thing  supernatural,  for  he  asks  them  to  believe  something 
which  they  will  think  as  incomprehensible  as  the  resur- 
rection ;  and  not  those  who  say  with  the  apostle,  "  If 
Christ  be  not  raised,  your  faith  is  vain,"  for  they  will 
hardly  let  this  ghost-story  be  foisted  upon  them  in  place 


NOTES.  159 

of  the  resurrection.  Strauss  has  made  a  bitter,  but  true 
remark.  Schenkel,  he  said,  preserved  for  Jesus  what  so 
many  took  away  from  him,  —  the  privilege  of  ghosting  for 
a  while.  Violently  as  Schenkel  expresses  himself  against 
what  he  calls  the  unprincipled  dealing  of  those  who  mark 
him  as  a  denier  of  the  resurrection,  he  has  no  right  to  do 
it.  His  assertion  that  he  does  not  deny  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  rests  merely  upon  the  fact,  that  he  has  substituted 
something  else  for  what  has  hitherto  been  understood  to 
be  the  resurrection.  Since  the  times  of  the  apostles,  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  has  been  understood  to  mean  that  he 
came  alive  out  of  the  grave.  Schenkel  denies  this  ;  there- 
fore he  denies  the  resurrection. 

n.  p.  143.  —  To  show  that  natural  science  does  not  lead 
away  from  God,  that  one  can  be  a  great  naturalist  without 
losing  his  faith,  I  will  add  a  few  only  of  the  confessions  of 
great  natural  philosophers.  The  epitaph  which  Copernicus 
composed  for  himself  is  well  known :  — 

"Not  the  grace  bestowed  upon  Paul  do  I  pray  for; 
Not  the  mercy  by  which  thou  pardonedst  Peter : 
That  alone  which  thou  grantedst  the  crucified  thief,  — 
That  alone  do  I  pray  for."  * 

Kepler  closes  his  work  on  the  Harmony  of  the  "Worlds 
with  these  words :  "  I  thank  thee,  my  Creator  and  Lord,  that 
thou  hast  given  me  this  joy  in  thy  creation,  this  delight  in 
the  work  of  thy  hands.  I  have  told  men  the  glory  of  thy 
works,  so  far  as  my  finite  spirit  could  comprehend  thine 
infinity.     If  I  have  said  any  thing  unworthy  of  thee,  or 

*  "  Nicht  die  Gnade,  die  Paulus  empfangen,  begehr  ich, 
Noch  die  Huld,  mit  der  du  dem  Petrus  verziehn, 
Die  nur,  die  du  am  Kreuze  dem  Schacher  gewahrst  hast 
Die  nur  begehr  ich." 


160  NOTES. 

have  aspired  for  mine  own  honor,  mercifally  forgive  me."* 
Newton  says,  "We  have  Moses,  the  prophets  and  apos- 
tles,—  yes,  the  word  of  Jesus  himself.  If  we  will  not 
consent  with  them,  we  are  as  inexcusable  as  the  Jews." 
Ritter,  the  founder  of  the  modern  geographical  science, 
says,  "The  magnificent  structure  of  the  sciences,  which 
man  arrogates  as  his  own,  and  even  its  highest  step,  phi- 
losophy, is  by  no  means,  as  he  fancies  and  proudly  boasts, 
only  his  own  creation.  It  is  only  the  unveiling  of  the 
Master's  work,  and  of  the  everlasting  treasure  of  the  truths 
hidden  therein,  which,  in  a  partial,  earthly  covering,  the 
creature  is  permitted  by  a  special  grace  from  above  to 
perceive  and  to  understand,  by  the  divine  light  that  has 
been  poured  into  his  soul.  No  branch  of  science  can  be 
a  living  branch,  can  be  a  true  branch,  unless  it  springs, 
free  from  all  merely  human  devices,  from  the  common 
root  that  is  deepest  of  all,  and  becomes  thereby  always  and 
chiefly  a  hymn  of  praise  to  God.  A  thousand  branches 
would  spring  forth  from  this  tree  of  life,  of  eternity,  of 
all  knowledge,  if  the  eyes  of  the  spirit  were  only  open,  and 
the  zeal  of  investigation  were  fired  by  the  aspiration  for 
divine  things.  The  world  is  everywhere  full  of  the  glory 
of  its  Creator.  Where  power  and  knowledge  do  not  reach, 
revelation  opens  the  gates  to  the  view  of  time  and  eternity."  f 
Agassiz  says,  "  I  confess  that  this  question,  as  to  the  nature 
and  foundation  of  our  scientific  classifications,  appears  to 
me  to  have  the  deepest  importance,  —  an  importance  far 
greater  indeed  than  is  usually  attached  to  it.  If  it  can  be 
proved  that  man  has  not  invented,  but  only  traced  this 


*  Kepleri  Op.  Om.,  ed.  Dr.  Frisch.,  vol.  v.,  lib.  Hi.  cap.  xv.,  nota  viii., 
pp.  406,  407.     Francofurti  et  Erlangse.     1864. 

t  Die  Erdkunde  von  Asien,  VIII.  Band,  I.  Abth.  p.  x.  Berlin :  G. 
Reimer.    1846. 


NOTES.  161 

systematic  arrangement  in  nature ;  that  these  relations  and 
proportions  which  exist  throughout  the  animal  and  vege- 
table world  have  an  intellectual,  an  ideal  connection  in 
the  mind  of  the  Creator ;  that  this  plan  of  creation,  which 
so  commends  itself  to  our  highest  wisdom,  has  not  grown 
out  of  the  necessary  action  of  physical  laws,  but  was  the 
free  conception  of  the  Almighty  Intellect,  matured  in  his 
thought  before  it  was  manifested  in  tangible,  external 
forms ;  if,  in  short,  we  can  prove  premeditation  prior  to 
the  act  of  creation,  —  we  have  done,  once  and  for  ever, 
with  the  desolate  theory  which  refers  us  to  the  laws  of 
matter  as  accounting  for  all  the  wonders  of  the  universe, 
and  leaves  us  with  no  God  but  the  monotonous,  unvarying 
action  of  physical  forces,  binding  all  things  to  their  inevi- 
table destiny.  I  think  our  science  has  now  reached  that 
degree  of  advancement  in  which  we  may  venture  upon  such 
an  investigation."  .  .  . 

"  And  though  I  know  those  who  hold  it  to  be  very  un- 
scientific to  believe  that  thinking  is  not  something  inherent 
in  matter,  and  that  there  is  an  essential  difference  between 
inorganic  and  living  and  thinking  beings,  I  shall  not  be 
prevented  by  any  such  pretensions  of  a  false  philosophy 
from  expressing  my  conviction,  that,  as  long  as  it  cannot 
be  shown  that  matter  or  physical  forces  do  actually  reason, 
I  shall  consider  any  manifestation  of  thought  as  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  a  thinking  being  as  the  author  of  such 
thought;  and  shall  look  upon  an  intelligent  and  intelligible 
connection  between  the  facts  of  nature  as  direct  proof  of 
the  existence  of  a  thinking  God,  as  certainly  as  man  exhib- 
its the  power  of  thinking  when  he  recognizes  these  natural 
relations."* 

*  Contributions  to  the  Natural  History  of  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica. By  Louis  Agassiz.  Vol.  i.  pp.  9-11.  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co. 
1857. 

11 


162  NOTES. 

Martius,  the  botanist,  says,  "  Do  you  ask  me  what  I  have 
gained  as  the  fruit  of  a  life  of  fifty  years  devoted  to  nat- 
ural philosophy?  Our  age  is  far  too  much  inclined  to 
assume,  that  the  men  who  devote  themselves  to  the  culti- 
vation of  the  natural  sciences  are  turned  away  from  faith 
in  what  lies  beyond  the  perception  of  the  senses,  that  they 
give  no  heed  to  the  warnings  of  the  spiritual  basis  of 
things.  But  who  is  able,  who  is  obliged,  to  perceive  them 
more  plainly  than  the  natural  philosopher,  who  stands,  not 
at  the  side  of  the  phenomena,  but  in  the  very  midst  of  the 
stream  of  life  ?  He  certainly  knows  this,  that  this  great 
whole  was  made  for  only  one  God;  and  he  also  recog- 
nizes that  something  else  rules  in  it  besides  the  laws  of 
the  visible  world.  These  he  seeks  and  finds  more  or  less ; 
and  his  understanding  apprehends  their  harmonious  co- 
operation as  the  expression  of  a  most  high,  of  a  Divine 
design.  But  he  cannot  penetrate  to  the  cause ;  and,  with 
the  fullest  confession  of  human  insufficiency,  he  becomes 
humble,  —  "We  trace  back  the  phenomena  according  to 
legal  series  and  conditions,  but  we  do  not  comprehend 
them  in  their  essence.  Far  off,  in  the  incommensurable 
distance,  lies  their  primeval  cause ;  and  the  davfid^eiv  of 
Plato,  wonder,  is  not  merely  the  beginning,  but  likewise 
the  end,  of  our  investigation."  When  one  looks  at  this 
list,  which  might  easily  be  made  larger,  of  the  confessions 
of  great  naturalists,  it  sounds  strange  to  hear  it  constantly 
reiterated,  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  present  position 
of  the  natural  sciences  to  believe  any  longer  in  "  God,  the 
Father  Almighty,  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth." 

III.  p.  145. — A  few  more  testimonials  from  men  who 
will  certainly  not  be  suspected  of  orthodoxy.  Schopen- 
hauer says,  "If  any  thing  could  reconcile  me  to  the  Old 


NOTES.  163 

Testament,  it  would  be  the  myth  of  the  fall  of  man.  For 
in  reality  the  condition  of  the  world  looks  precisely  like 
the  condition  of  punishment  for  a  great  past  transgression." 
"  The  world  is  fundamentally  only  so  well  arranged  as  is 
necessary  for  its  existence.  If  its  arrangement  were  any 
worse,  it  could  not  exist."  Melchior  Meyer  ("  The  Con- 
troversy concerning  Miracles,"  in  the  German  Museum  for 
1865,  No.  14*)  says,  "  God  cannot  have  created  the  world 
in  a  state  of  actual  perversion."  He  thinks  the  men  of 
science  have  at  last  become  so  accustomed  to  the  abomi- 
nation in  the  world,  that  it  appears  to  them  to  be  entirely 
in  order.  According  to  Melchior  Meyer  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  world  is  the  result  of  the  fact,  that  mankind 
did  not  stand  the  test  to  which  they  were  put,  and  there- 
fore left  the  state  of  innocency.  —  We  see  that  even  they 
who  do  not  believe  in  revelation,  come  through  their  rea- 
son to  the  fall  of  man,  the  result  of  which  is  the  imperfec- 
tion of  the  present  world.  Let  men  consider  the  fact  that 
so  much  evil  and  suffering  in  the  world  is  rather  serious ! 

IV.  p.  148.  —  I  cite  as  an  example  an  opinion  of  a 
member  of  this  school,  which  is  quoted  in  an  interesting 
article  in  the  "Magazine  of  Foreign  Literature"  (1865, 
14t  et  seq.).^  "Weighed  down  by  the  custom  of  eighteen 
hundred  years,  careless  of  our  national  origin,  we  are  given 
up  to  Semitic  ideas  which  diametrically  oppose  our  origi- 
nal traditions  and  instincts.  Nevertheless  these  Japhetic 
traditions  and  the  tendency  of  this  spirit  are  sure  of  the 
palm  of  victory  in  the  future.  Preserved  and  cherished 
in  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  they  were  dormant  in  us 

*  "  Der  Streit  iiber  das  Wunder  im  deutschen  Museum,  1865,  No. 
14." 

t  "Magazin  fiir  die  Literatur  des  Auslandes"  (1865,  14  flf.). 


164  NOTES. 

for  a  time,  but  awoke  at  the  period  of  the  Renaissance, 
and  led  us  on  the  path  of  free  inquiry.  Profound  French 
thinkers  of  our  day  point  out  our  national  origin  in  its 
authentic  monuments ;  and  show  that  our  wisdom  is  not 
based  upon  blind  subjection  to  arbitrary  statutes,  but  that 
the  tendency  of  this  spirit  owes  its  birth  and  its  origin  to 
the  carefal  observation  of  the  great  facts  of  nature  that 
surround  us,  and  of  the  laws  that  govern  the  world.  A 
history  which  is  built  upon  the  foundation  of  language,  a 
morality  and  a  philosophy  which  have  been  won  by  a  more 
cheerM  view  of  nature,  and  which,  even  in  their  errors, 
do  not  deny  their  source, —  the  source  which  springs  from 
the  mutual  relations  of  beings  to  one  another,  —  how 
highly  exalted  are  they  in  nobility  and  grandeur  above 
those  dogmas  which,  despairing  utterly  of  the  earth  and 
of  mankind,  make  life  a  torture-chamber  and  man  a  dumb 
sacrifice."  The  views  of  Burnouf,  in  his  work  on  the  In- 
dian Yedas,  are  similarly  developed.  According  to  his 
view,  the  original  tendency  of  the  Aryan  nations  is  pan- 
theistic ;  that  of  the  Semitic  nations,  monotheistic.  He  also 
intimates  that  the  Aryan  tendency  will  finally  prevail. 


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The  modern  representations  of  the  life 


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